Fort Hood Survivor: No. 14 little chance medics attached to his survival

Survived the unthinkable, held on to recover and now, healing! Fabulous story of next chapter.

For Fort Hood victim, dinner with shooter's cousin was uplifting
Post-Bulletin
By MATTHEW STOLLE
Published: May 7, 2014

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Patrick and Jessica Zeigler have traveled a long and harrowing road together these last four years.

On the day he was shot in a mass shooting at Fort Hood near five years ago, Zeigler's wounds — including a bullet wound to the skull — were instantly considered by medics as placing him beyond any possibility of recovery. He was assigned a number — No. 14 —indicating what little chance medics attached to his survival.

But in one of those expectation-defying moments that have characterized his recovery so far, Zeigler struck up a conversation with the medic.

"She started laughing and crying, and said, 'I have to save him,'" Jessica said in an earlier story.

Twenty percent of his brain was removed and a metal plate the size of a baseball is now part of his skull. The first year of his recovery was simply fighting for his life. After that, it was relearning the basics and starting over from scratch, like walking and dressing himself. Initially paralyzed on the left side, Zeigler had to learn how to do everything with his right hand.

Then there was the process of coming to terms with such a senseless and indiscriminate act of violence. Jessica said that when she went to the military trial for shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and saw him for the first time in person, her reaction to him was not what she had expected.

Unlike the menacing portraits of him on television, Hasan didn't look evil. She was later to told by Hasan's cousin, Nader Hasan, that growing up, Hasan was called Homer Simpson because he was this "dopey, nerdy guy."
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