Mayor: Victim in Mount Prospect garage shooting improving
A Mount Prospect woman shot multiple times Monday afternoon has been moved from intensive care to a standard recovery room at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
That’s according to Mount Prospect Mayor Paul Hoefert, whose son is married to the victim’s daughter.
“She's a very resilient person, and she's about the kindest person you ever want to know,” Hoefert said.
Hoefert said the 63-year-old woman was shot eight or nine times, but the bullets did not strike her head or vital organs. She had surgery Tuesday to remove two bullets, he added.
The shooting happened at about 4:45 p.m. in the secured garage of a condominium building on the 1200 block of West Northwest Highway.
Police said she was followed into the garage by her former boyfriend, Michael Work, 53, of Shorewood, Wisconsin. According to police, Work drove his car into the woman’s vehicle, got out and opened fire.
He then turned the gun on himself, police said.
Hoefert said the woman was returning from her job at FedEx and on the phone with her daughter at the time. She feigned death while her daughter, who works at a salon in Mount Prospect, turned to one of her coworkers and told her to call 911, according to the mayor.
“It was horrific that she had to hear all that. But she probably saved her mother’s life,” he said. “It’s a miracle she survived.”
Responding officers found the woman conscious and Work unconscious. Both were transported to the hospital, where Work would die a few hours later.
Hoefert said he rushed to the hospital after learning about the shooting from his son about 15 minutes after the attack. Eight of the woman’s 10 siblings were also there.
“It was surrealistic,” he said. “I couldn’t even believe it.”
The woman was able to give her account to investigators before going into surgery. A social worker was also there, Hoefert said.
Hoefert praised the village’s first responders and other public safety personnel involved in the investigation and care of the victim.