Top Doctors 2010: Gunshot Victim Survives Tragic Shooting

On February 3, 2007, Hilary Kruger’s life changed forever when an intruder entered the Waseca home she shared with her husband, Tracy, and their two sons. The armed intruder walked into the couple’s bedroom and started firing shots, ultimately killing Tracy and their 13-year-old son, Alec, and leaving Hilary Kruger for dead with a gunshot wound. Thankfully, the couple’s other son, Zak, was at a friend’s house for a sleepover. After first responders arrived at the home, Kruger was flown to North Memorial Medical Center, where doctors rushed to treat her bleeding liver (the gunshot had traveled through her left arm and into her torso, where it hit her liver).

Dr. Brian Larkin received a call around 7 am the next morning and was in the operating room within 45 minutes. The surgeons couldn’t stop the bleeding, so he stepped in. “She was dying,” he says.

Larkin turned to a procedure that is often used for internal bleeding. He entered the femoral artery in Kruger’s leg with a catheter to get to the aorta and the artery that entered the liver. He then identified where the bleeding was coming from and put 10 coils in that spot to essentially “plug up” the artery. Two hours later, surgeons discovered that the bleeding had stopped. Despite complications and a hospitalization that lasted months, “she just hung on,” Larkin says.

More than two years later, Larkin was subpoenaed to testify at the murder trial of Michael Zabawa, who was up for two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in the Kruger case. Zabawa was found guilty on all counts and is serving two life sentences.

Kruger, whose left arm had to be amputated because of the gunshot wound, hadn’t officially met Larkin until the trial because she was unconscious for most of his care of her. “I actually learned more about my procedure during the trial,” she says. They shared a hug after Larkin testified. “Seeing how she had survived and how she was thriving was astonishing, and it was really emotional,” he says.

“Both sides of my family had nothing but awesome things to say about Dr. Larkin,” says Kruger. “He was so involved and kept the family so informed,” she says. “He went above and beyond.”