Family reunited after shooting
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Asheville, NC (WLOS) — Earlier this month, Tony Korolchuk was passing through Indianapolis when he tried to buy an iPhone listed online.
It didn’t go as planned. He met with a man at a subway, was robbed and shot in the leg.
Doctors tried to save the limb, but they had to amputate it.
Tuesday, Korolchuk started his journey home back to Arden, where his family was waiting for him.
“I told him I loved him and hugged him. It could have been my last,” Dina Korolchuk said.
Headlights illuminated the smiles and waves of family members who had been anxiously awaiting the return of a father, husband and brother.
Tony Korolchuk had been in an Indianapolis hospital for the last three weeks, undergoing several surgeries and losing his leg in the process.
“It’s been a rollercoaster,” Korolchuk said.
It is a loss Tony’s younger brother Danny Korolchuk has also experienced.
“I had a bike fall down on my foot. [They] had to amputate it,” Danny Korolchuk said.
“[I will] just basically walk with him every step of the way, literally,” Korolchuk said.
“He went through it, and [I] see the active lifestyle that he is living. He’s doing it. I know I can,” Tony Korolchuk said.
The family was reunited days before Thanksgiving, a holiday family members hold close to their hearts.
“Thirty years ago, when we came here as refugees, that was the first holiday in America,” Tony Korolchuk said. “It’s a special time in our family.”
“It’s really a miracle,” Dina Korolchuk said. “There are no words to express how we feel.”
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