Parents shielding their children shot seven times by gunman at splash park
A couple were shot seven times while shielding their two daughters from a gunman who opened fire at a neighborhood splash park.
Micayla and Eric Coughlin took their two-year-old and seven-month-old daughters to the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad in Rochester Hills, Michigan, on Saturday to enjoy the beautiful weather that day.
‘Shortly after grabbing ice cream they walked to the splash pad and were not even there for a minute when Micayla and Eric heard gunfire,’ stated the mother’s friend, Noel Wakula, in a GoFundMe page for them.
‘In an effort to save the their children, they each grabbed a child to protect them.’
The parents sustained a total of seven gunshot wounds and are hospitalized.
‘Because of their heroic actions, their children were protected and able to go home that evening,’ wrote Wakula.
The family had been at the splash pad for less than a minute when a gunman pulled up in a vehicle and opened fire.
Seven other people were shot, officials said. They include an 8-year-old boy shot in the head and in critical condition, a 4-year-old boy shot in the thigh and in stable condition, and a 39-year-old woman struck in the abdomen and leg in critical condition.
The gunman has been identified as Michael William Nash, 42, of Shelby Township. He fled the scene and killed himself after an hours-long standoff with cops.
Nash is not believed to have known the victims.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard called the shooting ‘very random’ and ‘bizarre’.
The GoFundMe fundraiser ‘to help the family with unexpected medical bills and to be assisted with the financial burden from being off from their jobs while raising two beautiful young children’ had raised more than $82,000 as of Monday evening.
‘Micayla and Eric face a long and unknown recovery from this unthinkable tragedy,’ Wakula wrote.
It was one of three mass shootings that happened in the Detroit metropolitan area the same day.
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