Patton's son recovering from a beating

Retired Beacon Journal Sidebar editor Elizabeth Patton's son Mike is recovering, slowly but steadily, from a beating he got July 16 from an intruder at the Dallas, Georgia CVS Pharmacy where Mike is the manager.

Let Elizabeth, who lives in Blairsville, Georgia, about two hours from Dallas, tell it:

Mike is the manager of the CVS store in Dallas, GA. On Friday July 16th the store was doing inventory, which means there were 4 other managers and the inventory company all on hand.

Mike had noticed a man just wandering around and kept his eye on him. Next thing you know, the man was sitting down in the middle of the aisle. Mike approached him and told him he couldn’t just sit on the floor and he should leave. The guy responded, “Do what you gotta do,” so Mike headed for his office to call the police.

Then his staff told him the guy left the store and they watched him walk away for a while to make sure he was gone. About 10 minutes later Mike was standing in the main aisle with his back to the front door when the guy came running in and cold-cocked him right behind his right ear, knocking Mike unconscious immediately and he fell to the floor, where like a pumpkin (I’ve seen the video), his head was cracked open.

The guy kept hitting Mike until one of his employees, a 6-4, 220-pound kid, tackled the guy and pulled him off Mike and the other 4 managers surrounded him till the police came.

Mike suffered 22 stitches to his head, a severe concussion, separated shoulder and the store lost more than $2,000 in product which was damaged by Mike’s blood. It was quite harrowing.

I headed to Hiram, Georgia (Mike’s home) immediately and spent 18 days taking care of him, driving to medical appointments and such.

He has improved each day and we are hoping for a complete recovery, but it could take as long as 6 months according to the neurologist.

This happened at 12:30 on a sunny afternoon when all was going well -- until that happened.

My daughter, Cindy, the attorney, found out that the fellow is a frequent visitor to jails in Cobb County and Paulding County and is still in jail. As I drove the 2 hours from my home to Hiram, all I could do was thank the Lord the guy didn’t come back with a gun.

That’s how I spent my summer!!

-- Elizabeth

In an earlier email today, Betty wrote:

Family, Mike and I went to the neurologist yesterday and he got good news! The MRI’s were ok, the EEG was ok and the VNG (dizzy test) was ok. Sooo, I came back home to Blairsville confident that he will get back to normal, although it may take as long as six months till the post-concussion syndrome subsides completely. He still has “dizziness” at times and trouble sleeping at night, but the Dr. said that is entirely normal for his condition.

He is going to “try” to go back to work next Tuesday and see how it goes. Good thing about being the Manager, his hours are flexible. He drove his truck for the first time today and he said it went well.

Thanks for all your prayers, I am sure they helped him in his recovery.

-- E

You can email Betty at empatton@windstream.net