After the Abundant Life Christian School shooting left their 14-year-old son River clinging to life, Brett and Christina Clardy said an outpouring of support from the Madison community helped them see good amid the bad.
"It's very easy to find the ugly in the last few months," Brett Clardy said in one of the couple's first interviews since the Dec. 16 incident, which left two students and a teacher dead and six people injured. "But if you look beyond the ugly, there's so many beautiful moments."
>> Complete coverage of the shooting
From nurses working extra shifts and restaurants donating food to Culver's organizing a large fundraiser and friends and even strangers offering money and meals, benevolent actions renewed their faith, said Christina Clardy, a teacher at the school.
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"God is still good when circumstances aren't," she said.
River, who returned to school Feb. 5 after 46 days at UW Health's American Family Children's Hospital, almost didn't survive, said Dr. Adam Brinkman, the hospital's medical director of pediatric trauma care.
He was shot at least three times, injuring six parts of his body, with significant blood loss in the back of his throat and key arteries in his neck, Brinkman said. When the boy arrived at the hospital, he was unconscious, with low blood pressure and a rapid heart rate, signs of distress.
"We were very much against the clock," Brinkman said. "Had this been an adult, there's no way this adult would have survived."
On the first day, surgeons repaired the injury to the back of his throat. On the second day, they placed a stent in his right carotid artery to stop bleeding. On the third day, they removed a blood clot on the left side of his neck and stitched up another bleeding artery.
Two additional surgeries, on Dec. 20 and Dec. 26, removed a drain from River's neck and repaired a groin injury from a catheter used in one of the initial surgeries.
Two fractures in his left hip and one in his right hand healed without surgery, Brinkman said. Another fracture to his left shoulder blade, which may have been caused by a bullet or from falling after being shot, also healed without surgery, he said.
Another student who was critically injured, known as Samy, remains in the hospital in good condition. The others injured were treated and released shortly after the shooting, which killed teacher Erin West and student Rubi Vergara, 14.
Police said the shooter, 15-year-old Natalie "Samantha" Rupnow, took her own life before they arrived. Their investigation of the incident continues.
What happened that day
For the Clardys, who live near Sun Prairie, the ordeal has been a test of their faith, which they said has helped them maintain calmness during the ups and downs and find compassion for Rupnow and her family. The Clardys are active at Cornerstone Church in Waterloo.
"I think I've forgiven her; I don't hold any hate towards her," Christina said of Rupnow.
"We grieve for that family because they lost a child," Brett said.
Shortly before 11 a.m. on Dec. 16, Christina was teaching a seventh-grade Bible class on the first floor of Abundant Life, on Madison's Far East Side. River was in a study hall on the second floor, and two of his sisters were two doors down.
"There was an announcement, that it was a lockdown, but that it wasn't a drill," Christina said.
She didn't hear shots but recalled the active-shooter training she and other staff had received. She heard people running but kept her students in her classroom, as instructed, until police arrived.
Officers guided teachers and students next door to City Church. Christina saw her daughters in the balcony of the sanctuary, mouthing, "Where's River?"
Soon, they learned he had been taken by ambulance in uncertain condition to the hospital. Police drove them there.
Brett, an executive at Oxford Global Resources staffing agency in Madison, was in Chicago for a meeting. A friend called to tell him about the shooting, and he started driving back to Madison. Christina, who had left her cellphone in her classroom, eventually contacted him too.
At the hospital, doctors told the couple River was in surgery, with stable vital signs. They didn't know what that meant for his prognosis. Later that night, they finally got to see him. He was wrapped in tubes and bandages, unable to talk because a breathing tube was down his throat.
"You could tell it was him, but you couldn't tell where his neck began and his chin began," Brett said.
"It's hard to see your kid suffering," Christina said.
Turning point
For several precarious days, they didn't know if River would make it. Frustrated by not being able to hear his voice, Christina tried a type of communication she had previously used with River, who was adopted at age 3 and struggled early on with speech.
In the hospital's intensive care unit, she squeezed his hand three times, their sign for "I love you."
He squeezed back. Christina said it felt like a turning point. "I knew he was still in there," she said. "It gave me more hope."
After River's breathing tube was removed Dec. 27 and he left the intensive care unit Dec. 31, his recovery, though gradual, seemed certain. As he did physical, occupational and speech therapy, each milestone -- sitting up, walking two steps with a walker, walking down the hall -- was cheered.
River remembers being able to eat again, which was challenging even after the breathing tube was gone because his neck injuries made swallowing difficult. First came apple sauce and then pureed versions of corn and sausage. Finally, he got to order his favorite meal: shrimp scampi, with extra shrimp.
"It really felt great," he said. "I preferred the real food instead of the pureed food."
On Jan. 20, 10 days before he left the hospital, the Clardys took River to Abundant Life so he could walk through the building, as other students did before classes resumed Jan. 10.
The school was empty because it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Joined by a family friend's therapy dog, River sat in the room where the violence had erupted. He discussed his feelings with his parents and later with a hospital psychologist.
"He didn't sweat it at all," Brett said, adding that he and Christina never considered sending River to a different school after the shooting.
"It's not a building that did it," Christina said. "It's a person that made those choices."
Back at school
When River returned to his ninth-grade classes Feb. 5, many of his classmates wore bow ties, in honor of his fondness for them. "It was amazing being back at school (and) a little a scary," he said.
He continues to do physical and occupational therapy, to strengthen his shoulder and hip, improve his walking and increase dexterity in his right hand, which sustained nerve damage from the gunshot. He is left-handed.
At first, "with as many injuries as he had, it took a lot of energy to even do something as simple as sitting on the edge of the bed," said Mindy Hoffman, his physical therapist while in the hospital. "He's definitely a very hard worker, willing to do whatever he needs to do."
He still gets tired easily, taking a nap during study hall most days, but returned to karate class last week. A fan of Lego sets, model kits and mystery novels, River said he looks forward to going swimming this summer.
Brinkman said it's likely a bullet entered the right side of River's neck and exited the back of his throat. A second bullet likely hit the left side of his neck before exiting, he said. A third bullet, believed to have caused the hip fractures, remains in the boy's abdomen and is scheduled to be removed in June. One of the three bullets, or a fourth, likely hit his hand.
"He was shot multiple times, at least three," Brinkman said. "We can't really confidently say it was this-many times with this-many bullets."
What is clear is the severity of the neck wounds. "He was in probably the top 10% of injured trauma patients we've seen in the last five years," Brinkman said.
During River's time in the hospital, some 263 UW Health staff members cared for him, from doctors and nurses to therapists and child life staff.
"I think he's going to have a really great outcome from this," Brinkman said. "But I think there will always be a part of him that has some psychological suffering and stress."
No easy answers
Brett Clardy said he tries to process what happened through the biblical story of Joseph. After his brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph helped save many people during a famine in Egypt.
"What you intended for evil, God intended for good," Brett said, paraphrasing Genesis 50:20.
Christina agrees with that sentiment but said nothing will ever fully explain the devastation.
"We aren't going to get answers to our 'why' questions, even in the end, after all the investigation has occurred," she said.
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