A brave California mother who was shot while shielding her son during a Northern California rampage at her son’s school was ignored by several people while begging for help.
Tiffany Phommathep, 31, was dropping off three of her kids at an elementary school in rural Tehama County when a maniacal gunman opened fire Tuesday morning.
Using her body as a shield, the mother of three flung herself over her 10-year-old son while rounds were being pumped into her car. She was shot five times, bleeding and losing consciousness while being able to drive away.
Phommathep says she pulled up to a woman to ask for help. ‘Found some more strength to open my window, my door and I hopped out to her and asked her, ‘Can you help? I’m shot, I’m dying, and my kids are in the car,’ Phommathep told local KCRA.
Tiffany Phommathep, 31, pictured with her husband Johnny Phommathep, was shot five times in the Tuesday morning shooting at her children’s school in rural Tehama County
While shielding her son from gunfire, Phommathep was shot four times in the back and once in the hip
Phommathep family: Tiffany and her husband Johnny with their son John Jr., 10, Jake, 6, and 2-year-old Nikos, with a fellow older family member
‘She said she couldn’t help me because she only had a two-seater and she was late for work.’
‘That hurt my heart a lot to hear her say that,’ she added.
She said while she was getting shot at- she was scared she could’t take another bullet wound.
‘I just kept on praying that he’d go away because I can’t take another bullet,’ Phommathep said. ‘I knew I wouldn’t make it.’
Phommathep’s children were also hurt, either shot or struck by glass, but their mother took the brunt of the bullets.
The young family is still recovering- and will be for some time, their mother still has a bullet lodged in her stomach days after the shootings
The bleeding and dying mother asked four people who refused to help her until she finally found a deputy sheriff.
‘I think they just didn’t want to get involved in case I was being, like, chased by some lunatic that was trying to gun me down,’ Phommathep said.
‘She crawled out, bleeding,’ her husband Johnny Phommathep said. ‘If it wasn’t for him [deputy sheriff] my wife wouldn’t be here.’
Kevin Janson Neal (pictured), 43, has been named as the killer who shot dead four people and injured at least 10 more in a spree that climaxed with him firing 100 rounds into a school
Her son John Jr., the 10-year-old in the front seat, was shot twice in the calf.
She suffered four gunshots to her back and one to her hip.
Jake, 6, was shot in the foot while sitting in the backseat on the passenger’s side. And 2-year-old Nikos, who was sitting next to Jake, was cut by glass and nearly struck by a bullet that pierced the door beside him, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Tiffany’s husband said they lived near the gunman and knew him to be dangerous.
‘We’re not mad, we’re not angry,’ Johnny Phommathep told KCRA.
‘We just feel like things could have been prevented, but that’s out of our control.’
Three days after the shooting, Tiffany Phommathep still had a bullet lodged in her stomach.
Neal performed a series drive-bys in this stolen truck (seen with police investigators) before smashing into school gates in it and firing through windows and walls
The family has a GoFundMe page to help with the soaring medical bills.
Johnny says they are just lucky their family survived.
‘We’re one of the fortunate ones,’ he said. ‘We can go home.’
The gunman killed at least four people and hospitalized 10 more – including two children as parents took their children to school is Kevin Janson Neal, 43.
Neal, who sometimes used the name Smith, was identified as the shooter after his Tuesday rampage, which climaxed with him smashing into a school’s gates and firing into its walls and windows.
Family say he was addicted to drugs and was awaiting trial for stabbing a neighbor in a feud.
He began his rampage near his home on Bobcat Lane in the Rancho Tehama Reserve at 7.52am, shooting people at random before stealing a truck and performing drive-bys on homes, pedestrians and other drivers.
Neal eventually arrived at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School and smashed through its gates before firing as many as 100 bullets through windows and walls, hitting one child, and trying to enter classrooms. He then fled, and was shot dead by police near the property.
Neal was arrested in January for shooting at two neighbors and stabbing one of them, at the climax of a long-running dispute. It’s not clear if they were among his Tuesday victims
‘I thought there was a car accident,’ Stephanie Turner, who was dropping off her children, aged six and seven, at the time, told the Sacramento Bee of Neal’s assault on the school gates.
‘I pulled into the school and heard gunshots. I told my kids to get down onto the floor. Then I saw a guy in the back of the school with a rifle. As soon as he saw us, he started shooting at us. I just took off.’
The shooting appears to have come after a long period of instability from Neal, including stabbing one of his neighbors.
Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen told ChicoER that on January 31, a long-standing dispute between Neal and two female neighbors came to a head when he shot at them and attacked one with a knife.
He said Neal opened fire on the neighbors as they walked along a wooden fence.
He reportedly then jumped the fence, stabbed one of them and stole the other’s cellphone.
Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston told Fox News that one of the victims was the woman he shot in January, although it’s not clear if she was fatally wounded.
Police are still working out the exact motive for the shooting.
Police evidence tags lie in the abandoned playground at Rancho Tehama Elementary School where Neal opened fire after a miles-long drive-by spree on Tuesday, injuring children
Forensic investigators are seen at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School on Tuesday night. Neal fled the scene in a stolen vehicle and was shot dead by cops at a nearby intersection