Brick victim: 'Let family mourn'

ALTO, Mich. (WOOD) - It was nearly 10 years ago that a brick dropped from an overpass changed Vickie Prantle's face forever.

Now, she is questioning why others still won't forgive after one of the teens involved died last week in a motorcycle accident.

"I feel bad for their family," Prantle, 55, said. "It's sad, especially with all the comments that people have been saying. You know, he doesn't deserve that. He was young when it happened and now, it's like, just let the family mourn. They lost their son. They lost a husband and a brother."

Jack Swick, 26, died Tuesday when a 16-year-old turned his pickup in front of Swick's motorcycle near Lowell.

Some comments posted on online stories about Swick's death suggest he had it coming for his role in the brick assault.

Prantle was driving with her daughter, Sarah, on I-96 in February 2003 when a cobweb-covered brick dropped from the Morse Lake Avenue overpass punched through her windshield. It split open her face.

Then they pulled over to pray.

"It was instant. We were in the car and Sarah asked if we would pray," Prantle said. "It was immediate, you know, forgiveness, and it was over with. There was no hatred, no bitterness, nothing."

It has taken nearly a dozen surgeries to rebuild her face. She lost the vision in her right eye. She expects more surgeries as her face changes with age.

Her forgiveness likely kept the teens out of prison. Jeffrey Kooiman, then 19, was locked up for a short time for dropping the brick. Kooiman's mom recently thanked Prantle in an email, after Kooiman had a baby.

"She just thanked us for forgiving him, and he's trying to get his life back together," Vickie said. "I think he was having a hard time forgiving himself."

As for Swick, he testified he was almost on the overpass when he heard the thump of Kooiman's brick. Swick said he dropped the brick he was carrying onto the highway below and ran to his friend's waiting pickup.

He served a year in the jail's honor camp.

But it was Prantle's forgiveness, not the brick, that helped define Swick, his family said.

"That really helped his heart to move on," his long-time girlfriend Teresa Sturgeon said. "And I think it helped make him a stronger person.

"I can't thank her enough, that family, to be able to do that is a great thing," Sturgeon said of the Prantles. "It's that kind of love that's going to get us through this."

Swick was managing a local courier company and staying out of trouble. He and Sturgeon had three children together.

"He loved coming home to his children," Sturgeon said. "Every day, that's what he looked forward to coming home to do."

But the online comments, she said, are hurting.

"My heart almost aches for them that they live with so much ugly inside them that they can do that to people," she said. "When people need words of encouragement, and they need help, and they need love, these people are just tearing you down."

Swick's family buried him at Bowne Cemetery, using shovels to toss dirt onto his casket. They wanted to be there for him through the end.

His 6-year-old son, Jack, helped.

"Until it was done, that little boy shoveled and he shoveled and he shoveled and he did it and he got back in the car to go, and he said, 'Mommy, that was really hard burying my daddy without crying.'"