A Texas father is out of jail after staging a siege to save his son, who the dad says was about to be taken off life support.
And his son has now apparently made a miraculous recovery.
In January, a drunken George Pickering II stormed the Tomball Regional Medical Center in Houston with a gun and demanded access to his son, George III.
“There was a law broken, but it was broken for all the right reasons. I’m here now because of it,” George III told Fox 6. “It was love. It was love. It’s the duty of a parent to protect your children and that’s all he did. Everything good that made me a man is because of that man sitting next to me.”
George III was on life support in January after suffering a stroke, and doctors had declared him “brain dead,” his father told Click 2 Houston.
Hospital staff appointed Pickering’s ex-wife and his other son to make decisions for George III, and had alerted an organ donor organization as to his imminent death.
When reached by phone by the Daily News, George III’s mother Teresa Pickering complained that East Coast media would not cover the story fairly, and would not elaborate. She did say her son was not fully recovered from the stroke.
After the hospital approved a “terminal wean” — which slowly removes life support — George II decided it was time to act, he said.
“I felt hopeless. They were moving too fast. The hospital, the nurses, the doctors,” dad told Click 2 Houston.
To halt the process, Pickering grabbed a gun and threatened staff, demanding access to see his son.
Desperate, Pickering admitted he was intoxicated and being aggressive, but said he was certain there was still life left in his son and needed the time alone with him.
Although he was soon disarmed by his other son, he told cops he had a second weapon and closed himself in with George III as SWAT teams negotiated with him.
And he soon got the sign of life from his son that he had hoped for, reported CBS 4 News.
“During that three hours, George squeezed my hand three or four times on command,” said Pickering.
Eventually, following hours of negotiations, a police robot uncovered the curtain Pickering was hiding behind, and he then surrendered peacefully.
Dad was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, but one was later dismissed and the other lessened to a state jail felony.
“This case has always been about a father protecting his son, when his son couldn’t protect himself,” Pickering’s lawyer Phoebe Smith told Click 2 Houston.
Pickering was given credit for the time served in jail, and released earlier this month to be reunited with his son.
“The important thing is I’m alive and well, my father is home and we’re together again,” George III told Click 2 Houston.
