After two years, Father Tim finds his voice

After two years, Father Tim finds his voice
Thirty months after suffering a head injury in Iraq, the Catholic priest -- so seriously wounded that doctors at first thought he wouldn't survive -- is now talking.
Maura Lerner, Star Tribune
Last update: November 05, 2006 – 4:00 PM

On Oct. 26, Phyllis Vakoc of Plymouth got a phone call from her son's hospital room.
"Be quiet, don't say anything and be patient," a friend on the other end of the line told her. Puzzled, Vakoc waited. And then she heard her son's voice.

"Hi, Mom," he said, and she froze. It had been two and a half years since her son had suffered a devastating head injury in Iraq. Two and a half years since he had spoken. "I thought I was hearing things," she said last week. "I thought I'd never hear that voice again."

The Rev. H. Timothy Vakoc, a Catholic priest, was so seriously wounded that doctors at first thought he wouldn't survive. But in recent days, he has started to speak, to the astonished delight of family, friends and caretakers.


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