World
Trump rally shooting: Woman says firefighter dad died ‘shielding’ family, ‘Loved us enough to take a real bullet’
The grieving daughter of 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, a firefighter who died while protecting his family during a shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, has spoken out. Comperatore served as chief of a volunteer company in the early 2000s. He eventually cut back his role to focus on his family.
When 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire in an attempt to assassinate Trump, the former president was wounded but Comperatore lost his life. Until his death, he remained an active firefighter and member of his community. Crooks was later killed by Secret Service snipers.
‘He shielded my body from the bullet’
His daughter, Allyson Comperatore, has now shared her sorrow in a Facebook post. “Yesterday time stopped. And when it started again my family and I started living a real-life nightmare,” Allyson wrote. “What was supposed to be an exciting day that we had all looked forward to (ESPECIALLY my dad), turned into the most traumatizing experiences someone could imagine.”
Allyson went on to say that she knows that the media will cover the incident, but she wants the world to know what “the media will not cover, and will not say about him.” “He was the best dad a girl could ever ask for. My sister and I never needed for anything. You call, he would answer, and he would do whatever it is you needed, and if he didn’t know how he would figure out how. He could talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day yesterday and loved every minute of it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family,” she said of her father.
Allyson described how her father “threw my mom and I to the ground” and “shielded my body from the bullet that came at us” to protect them. “He loved his family. He truly loved us enough to take a real bullet for us. And I want nothing more than to cry on him and tell him thank you. I want nothing more than to wake up and for this to not be reality for me and my family,” she said.
Describing her dad as a “selfless, loving, husband, father, brother, uncle, son, and friend,” Allyson wrote, “And I will never stop thinking about him and mourning over him until the day that I die too. July 13th will forever be a day the changed my life. I will never be the same person I was less than 24 hours ago.”
She concluded, “There are a lot of children out there that say their dad is their hero, but my dad really is mine. I don’t think I would be here today without him. Dad, I love you so much that there aren’t enough words to express how deep that love goes. I know you’ll give heaven some hell. I know that God is proud of the man that came to His gates yesterday.”