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April 06--FOND DU LAC -- As his lungs filled with blood, Officer Ryan Williams focused on one thing -- saving himself even though he suspected his wound was fatal.
He never saw the man who shot him and it wasn't until two days later when he awoke in a hospital that he found out his police dog Grendel had suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
And as he recuperated from two gunshot wounds to the chest, Williams focused on two things -- getting well enough to see his two young daughters and attend the funeral of Officer Craig Birkholz.
On Wednesday morning Williams recounted publicly for the first time what happened on the morning of March 20 when he led a team to the home of a sexual assault suspect. Williams said he decided to put on a second bullet proof vest at the last moment. He remembered saying to another officer that if they had time he planned to don another vest before entering the duplex, was told there wasn't time to do that and decided to put on another vest anyway.
It was a decision that saved his life.
As he walked up a set of stairs Williams heard a shot. The blast knocked him to the ground. Williams struggled to his feet. He figured he was about to die.
"Instantly I thought, with my lungs filling up with blood, I thought it was a fatal shot," Williams said at a news conference at the police station.
It wasn't until much later he learned he had been shot twice in the chest. Fortunately, his body armor absorbed most of the impact and changed the trajectory of the bullets.
Williams, 33, managed to leave the house, and within minutes an ambulance pulled up to the scene. But as he got to the ambulance, the crew decided it wasn't safe and pulled away.
"So at one point while I had two bullets in me I chased after the ambulance," he said.
He pleaded with the ambulance crew to let him call his wife but they refused, which in hindsight, Williams said, was a good idea because he would have made his wife even more anxious to hear him in pain.
"I didn't fight them because I didn't want to anger the guys who were trying to save my life," said Williams, as Grendel's tail thumped against a wooden podium in a conference room at the police station.
Williams stood up and pointed to the spots on his chest and back where bullets entered and exited. Another bullet went through the police dog's right side and struck organs as Grendel sat in Williams' squad car. Almost as if on cue, Grendel got up and turned his wounded side toward the news cameras. The pup showed off a three-inch, jagged scar surrounded by a large patch where his black fur is growing back following the emergency surgery.
When a journalist placed a tape recorder on a table where Williams was sitting, the 6-year-old German shepherd barked and woofed.
"He's ready to go back to work," said Williams, adding that Grendel got more visitors than he did while they recovered at hospitals.
Williams and Grendel have worked together five years. Like most police K-9 units, Grendel lives with Williams and his family and the human and canine officers share a close bond, working a nine-hour shift most nights.
At the funeral for Birkholz, an Army veteran who served tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, Williams managed to rise from a wheelchair to salute his fallen comrade as Birkholz's casket passed by. Along with hundreds of law enforcement officials from throughout the state and Midwest, K-9 officers from many departments attended with their police dogs who lined up at attention in tribute to Birkholz, something Williams said meant a lot to him.
"All K-9 handlers feel the same thing. We think about the same scenarios -- what happens if your dog gets shot? What happens if you get shot? I, unfortunately, had both of them happen to me," Williams said.
Williams remembers the ambulance ride and the flight to Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah. The next thing he knew it was two days later and when he opened his eyes he saw shocked looks from everyone in his room. Doctors were astounded he was alert and awake so soon.
Almost immediately Williams set goals for himself. The first was to get well enough to move out of the intensive care unit where children are not allowed so he could see his two daughters, ages 1 and 2. The next was to attend Birkholz's funeral, held six days after the shooting in his hometown of Kenosha.
Less than a week after taking two slugs to the chest, Williams went home from the hospital -- terrific news for a police agency reeling from the senseless death of one of their own.
"He's been the best medicine for the department," said Fond du Lac Police Chief Tony Barthuly. "A true hero. He's an inspiration."
The fatal shootout is under investigation by state officials. Authorities say James Cruckson began firing when Williams and other police officers came to his home on Fond du Lac's west side to investigate a sexual assault complaint. Cruckson was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after an hours-long standoff.
Williams said he and Grendel expect to return to duty in four to eight weeks.
"Me and my dog are very similar. We're both maybe a little tough and maybe a little dumb at the same time. We don't realize what happened, that we got shot and we shouldn't be where we are right now but he's recovering as fast as I am now," Williams said. "My dog loves to work. I love my job. I love what I do for a living and we're both ready to come back as soon as we're both physically able to."
