Carjack victim begins 2002 at home

The surgeon for USF student Lai Chau says: "Any one of the three (bullets) could have killed her.''

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 1, 2002

TAMPA -- On Dec. 13, Lai Chau was shot three times in the head by carjackers and left for dead in an empty schoolyard.

Fifteen days later, the University of South Florida pharmacy student was released from the hospital with a headache and a cracked jaw.

Chau, 20, is one lucky young woman, her trauma surgeon said Monday. If the bullets had taken paths just fractions of an inch differently, Lai Chau almost certainly would have been killed.

"She could have been dead instantly," said Dr. Forrest Haslup, one of Chau's three surgeons at St. Joseph's Hospital. "She's lucky."

This is the miracle of the three bullets:

One penetrated behind an ear, fracturing Lai Chau's skull. Because it was a thick part of her skull, the bullet just bruised the brain, causing no real damage.

Another bullet went through the front of an ear, crossed the inside of Chau's nose and hit her jaw, fracturing it.

The third bullet, Chau amazingly ended up swallowing. It entered her neck, missing an artery by a fraction of an inch, and fell into her digestive system.

"Any one of the three (bullets) could have killed her," Haslup said. "I guess she has some great deed to accomplish for mankind."

The worst of Chau's injuries was caused by the bullet that cracked her jaw. Her teeth have been wired together and will remain that way for the next three to six weeks in order for her jaw to heal, Haslup said.

Chau is recuperating at a relative's house, with help from her sister, 11-year-old Lena.

She still has a tracheotomy tube but it is expected to be removed later this week, Haslup said.

"She's anemic from the blood she lost," Haslup said. "(But) she can go back to school. I don't see why not."

It was a rapid recovery for a woman who not only survived, but has been alert since the shooting. She aided detectives in finding one of the suspected carjackers and amazed family and friends with her upbeat personality.

Just two days after she was shot, Lai (pronounced LAY) Chau wrote a note to her cousin from her hospital bed.

"Call Pearl," Chau scrawled. Pearl Daacon has been Chau's best friend of 10 years. "Tell her I can't go to the Britney Spears concert on Tuesday."

"I was like, "Are you kidding?' " Daacon said after receiving the message. "But that's Lai. She's always so considerate, even after something like this happens."

While Chau is spending most of her time resting, she did celebrate a belated Christmas with close relatives on Monday. She wants nothing more than to return to school at USF, relatives said.

Chau did not feel well enough to speak to a St. Petersburg Times reporter Monday.

She has nightmares about that night, she has told relatives. She suffers from constant headaches. To Chau, every noise sounds like gunfire.

On the night of Dec. 13, Chau was forced into her pink Acura Integra at gunpoint in her apartment complex, the Remington Apartment Homes on N 30th Street near USF's Tampa campus. She had just spent an evening helping out at her father's restaurant, the Wok Out, in Clearwater.

Her assailants drove her to Forest Hills Elementary School where they ordered her out of the car. They shot her three times and left with her car, which they later set on fire.

Chau was able to crawl across an alley to a house where she asked for help.

Tobaris Arrington, 17, has been arrested in connection with the crime. No other arrests have been made.

News of the carjacking stunned those who know Chau. It reached South Carolina, where former classmate Adam Dietrich is attending Johnson & Wales University.

"It was devastating and incredibly scary," said Dietrich, 19. "To think somebody would do that to Lai. . . ."

Chau was a cheerleader, a member of the homecoming court and active in student government at Pinellas Park High, where she was enrolled in the Criminal Justice Academy, a magnet program.

While intensely private about her home life, she built an active social life at school.

"She would give anybody the time of day. Anybody," Dietrich said. "She was very popular. Everybody knew and loved Lai."

After graduation, Chau enrolled at USF. Her time at the family restaurant dwindled from almost daily to the weekends. She got her own apartment. Chau wanted independence and an education so that she could build a successful life away from the restaurant business, relatives said.

"She's just a strong and beautiful person," Daacon said. "If anyone could survive, Lai could."

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