BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WOOD) — Gene and Vickie Kopf have been told over and over their daughter would die. At one point, they were told she was already gone.
But 14-year-old Abigail Kopf, the youngest victim of the Kalamazoo shooting spree that left six people dead, is very much alive — and her parents say she’s a fighter.
“She’s kicked butt,” Vickie Kopf said, laughing and wiping away tears. “I mean, from what she’s been through that night we got that horrible phone call.”
Gene and Vickie Kopf sat down with 24 Hour News 8 Monday. Over the course of two hours, they recounted the terrifying night their daughter was shot, her miraculous recovery and the woman who saved her life.
‘TELL ME RIGHT NOW: IS SHE DEAD?’
On the night of Feb. 20, Vickie Kopf got two significant phone calls. The first was from her aunt around 11 p.m.
“She said, ‘There is a crazy man with a gun in Kalamazoo shooting people. Have you heard from Abbie and Barb?’ And I said no,” Kopf recalled.
She called and texted their phones. There was no answer.
After hanging up, her phone rang. It was Bronson Children’s Hospital calling to say Abbie had been involved in the shooting.
“I said, ‘Oh, Lord. Where was she shot at?’ And they wouldn’t answer me and I said- I cussed a few times. I don’t know what I said, but I remember saying, ‘Tell me right now: Is she dead?’ And the lady in the phone said, ‘No, she’s not dead,’” Kopf recounted. “And I said, ‘…Where was she shot at?; And she said, ‘Well, honey, it’s serious.’ And I said, ‘Where was she shot at? Do I have time to make it there?’ And she said, ‘She was shot in the head.’ And I remember dropping to the floor.”
She said she and her husband went numb. They sped to the hospital, running red lights.
“I remember the doctor grabbing my hand, they just started pulling me,” Kopf said.
She said the sight of Abbie and her injury was like a horror movie.
“You look at your daughter and you see it every time you look at her head,” Kopf said. “You watch her sit up in bed with people holding her and you see it. You watch her try to walk and you see that image. It’s an image that will never ever go away. It’s an image that will probably haunt us for the rest of our life.”
DECLARED DEAD
At the hospital, Abbie’s vitals slowed. Staff started CPR.
“I started to scream, ‘Stop,’ because I couldn’t stand to see them pump her lifeless body back and forth to try to get her to come back,” her mother said.
Doctors called time of death. The Kopfs lay over their daughter, sobbing. Then Vickie Kopf felt her move.
“I said something to the nurse and she said, ‘Honey, most bodies twitch after they die. It’s normal.’ And I kind of ignored it for a moment and I said, ‘Could you please check her and make me feel better,’” she said.
The nurse checked and found Abbie had a pulse. She was alive, but likely brain-dead, the Kopfs were told. Her mother knew Abbie wanted to donate her organs to help others, so Vickie began the process. But she needed a sign from Abbie.
“(Abbie) despises holding hands like this, just despises it,” Kopf explained, demonstrating by clasping her hands. “She never has liked it and I don’t know why but every time I tried to hold her hand like that she would go like this,” she continued, showing how Abbie preferring interlocking fingers with her.
She sat next to Abbie.
“I said, ‘Baby, if you are in there and you can hear me, just let me know’ And in a few minutes after that, I was sitting there and then all a sudden her hand just slightly went like that,” Kopf said, showing how Abbie shifted her hand to interlock their fingers.
Kopf asked her to do it again and she did, this time squeezing her mother’s hand.
ABBIE’S ‘ANGEL’
“(Abbie) was smacking my hand and was trying to draw the letter B in the palm and Gene was asking, ‘Are you trying to ask something?’” Vickie Kopf said.
Abbie was asking about Barbara Hawthorne, who the family affectionately dubbed Grandma Barb though there was no relation.
The Kopfs credit Hawthorne with saving their daughter.
Hawthorne was in the car with Abbie when the gunfire rang out. The Kopfs say Hawthorne took three bullets to the chest when she pushed Abbie down to shield her during the shooting.
>>RELATED: Complete coverage of the Kalamazoo shooting rampage
Once the ambulance arrived, Hawthorne refused treatment until Abbie was treated, the Kopfs said. They said Hawthorne gave medical personnel her parents’ names so that they could be contacted.
Hawthorne, 68, was one of the six people to lose their lives in the shooting spree.
“Barb is my hero,” Kopf said. “She saved Abbie’s life. And I also believe that her angel is sitting right beside Abbie.”
‘BREATHTAKING’ RECOVERY
Abbie gave doctors a thumbs up and she was rushed into brain surgery. Her condition was still grave and doctors made no promises that she would live.
Her mother said she knew she would.
“I just looked at Gene and said, ‘She’s not finished yet, she’ll be off that table,’” she said. “Sure enough, she was off his (the surgeon’s) table.”
Less than a month after the shooting, Abbie is in a rehabilitation hospital in Grand Rapids. She can talk now, and a photo of her laughing was shared on her GoFundMe page Sunday.
“She just keeps on going. I call her my little Energizer bunny,” Kopf laughed.
She makes progress every day.
“She said ‘mama’ yesterday and she also said ‘daddy’ and ‘pig‘ — she’s stuck on the word pig — and she said she loved us yesterday. It was breathtaking. It’s overwhelming when you hear your daughter saying that when you don’t think you are ever going to hear her voice,” Kopf said.
Abbie is gaining movement in her neck and working on walking, but she struggles with memory.
“Abigail has asked a couple questions, she has asked what happened to her head. We have told her she was shot in the head. She cried,” her mother said.
But Kopf says Abbie does remember some of the night of the shooting.
“She remembers him, because she’s having nightmares,” she said. “That we do know because she’s waking up and she keeps asking the nurses who’s the bad man with the gun.”
Doctors say Abbie will likely have flashbacks similar to soldiers returning from war.
But she’s hasn’t lost her spunk.
“The other day she just refused to listen to that therapist and I looked at her and I said, ‘Abigail, get off your butt, lift your arm. I don’t care if you lip me off,’” her mother said. “And what did she do, she lifted her arm and lipped me off.”
Her mom says she will take any sign of recovery.
Abbie’s short-term memory is still impaired. It’s unclear if that problem will persist or if she will ever recover fully.
“We don’t know. I’m hoping it will be 90 percent if not a 100,” Kopf said.
JASON DALTON ‘IS NOT GOING TO STOP HER’
As for the man suspected of shooting Abigail and seven others, Jason Dalton, the Kopfs say they have nothing to say to him. Their wish is for him to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
“I’m not the type of person who believes an eye for an eye,” Vickie Kopf said. “I mean, yeah, I know he killed a lot of people. But why kill him? That’s wrong. That’s making me no better than him and I’m not a murderer.”
They say they aren’t angry. Instead, they are channeling all of their energy into helping Abbie.
“This man with a gun is not going to stop her,” Vickie Kopf said. “She is going to continue her life and she is going to do whatever she needed to do.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
The Kopf family said they still need help covering Abbie’s medical costs.
A GoFundMe page dedicated to Abigail has raised more than $59,000.
A fundraiser for Abigail is being held on March 18 at Harper Creek Middle School by her classmates. A counselor at the school says all of the money raised will go to Abigail’s official GoFundMe account.
Tiana Carruthers, the first person shot in the Feb. 20 spree, also survived and is alsoin rehab.
