The heartbroken father of reporter Alison Parker, who was killed by a gunman on live TV, has vowed to campaign for legislation to stop firearms from getting into the hands of “crazy people”.
“Is this true?” Andy Parker asks in a heartbreaking new interview after his daughter was tragically shot on air by a former colleague at WDBJ in Virginia.
“I don’t watch any news,” Parker said in an interview.
“It just breaks my heart even more than it already is.”
Since Andy Parker’s daughter died, he confessed that the grief was unbearable and said he was constantly grieving.
The devastated father told The Washington Post that he learned of the shooting, which killed 24-year-old television reporter and cameraman Adam Ward, about an hour after the attack.
seconds before the shooting. Source: YouTube
The family received a call from the station management informing them that she had been shot outside the shopping center.
“At first I had some hope, but deep down I knew,” said the 62-year-old Martinsville, Virginia, resident. “Alison would have called me right away and told me it was okay.”
After the reporter’s death, a recruiter in the banking industry confessed, “I can’t bear the sadness.”
“Am I going to wake up? I have tears in my eyes.”
And the fact that Allison’s killer, Bester L. Flanagan, 41, who committed suicide on the same day, was a former co-worker who recorded the shooting and posted the video online. is increasing further.
“It’s like showing a decapitation,” said Andy, who also has older children.
Video recorded by Mr. Flanagan as he shot his former co-worker. Photo: Attached
“I’m not going to watch it.”
“I can’t watch it. I can’t even watch the news.”
Parker has vowed to address gun control issues through his campaign.
“We have to do something about crazy people getting guns,” he told Fox News.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to shame the lawmakers who close background check loopholes to keep crazy people from getting guns. You heard it from me. This won’t be the last time.”
Parker and Ward joke around before getting into their story. Source: Provided
Robert Ganzi, director of the Greenwich Village Center for Separation and Loss, told Yahoo Parenting that the fact that Alison’s death was caught on camera “made it even more traumatic.”
“Her father is trying to assimilate something unimaginably intolerable,” says the psychologist.
“The attention that this event brings can make it even more difficult because when he’s exposed to it on the news 24/7, it becomes very difficult for him to take a break from that. ”
Losing a child is “something no one can ever get over,” psychiatrist Karen Ann Davis, president of Life After Loss in New York City, tells Yahoo Parenting. spoke.
“Right now he’s in a state of shock.”
She added that while the outpouring of support her father and Alison’s entire family is receiving may be temporary solace, “It’s been a long time coming. “Within the next month, Andy is going to be in really bad shape. I hope he can talk to a good therapist who can help him.”
Ganzi agrees that counseling is essential. Therapy is a touchstone, he explains, as Alison’s loved ones learn to live in a “whole new world, where work, friends, and activities are no longer as important as they once were.”
They now have a perspective that is far removed from the norm: “Every part of life requires reprocessing.”
And people who understand the right pace to absorb these things give the grieving person the feeling that someone understands them. ”
Alison Parker and photographer Adam Ward. Photo: Twitter
People who offer help have good intentions, he continues, “but often they don’t really understand.
“This kind of experience can be very alienating.
“And people want to be helpful, but most people don’t fully understand the words and actions needed to make this dad feel better.
You’ll never be able to get out of bed in the morning the same way again when your loved one disappears on TV one day. ”