This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

This report originally ran Feb. 23, 2007.

When Colleen Hanson called Thursday morning to see if I would come to University Hospital to interview her husband, Stacy, I asked her, why didn't she call a real reporter? The same thought occurred to my editors. I'm a humor columnist, a professional fool. Stacy Hanson is a survivor (just barely) of the rampage at Trolley Square. There's nothing humorous about that.

Colleen said the last thing she needed was some serious reporter writing about her husband. She has all the serious she can stand in her life right now.

"And you make my husband laugh," she said. "Are you coming or not?"

Stacy was in intensive care, normally a serious "no media zone" in a hospital. Colleen came out and got me before someone with better sense called security. She introduced me to her husband.

Stacy looked no different than any other middle-age guy with a 10-day growth of beard and three massive shotgun wounds. He's pale, weak and full of tubes. A poster featuring unflattering photographs of him and rude get-well wishes from friends was at the end of the bed.

I sat down and asked the only intelligent journalist question I knew: "Wow, what happened to you?"

Stacy told me. I kind of wish he hadn't. The only thing worse than actually being at Trolley Square that night is hearing what happened from someone who was. I could almost hear the sound of screams and shots coming from the look in his eyes.

Stacy's sense of humor almost got him killed. He had gone to Cabin Fever store that night because it carried the sort of "whacky" Valentine cards he knew Colleen liked.

"We heard this pop-pop-pop sound coming closer," he said. "We thought it was construction, but then we realized it was shooting."

Someone shouted for everyone in the store to get down. Big and tall as he is, it was pointless for Stacy to try and hide. He was standing near a window when 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic came in and pointed a shotgun at him.

"I asked him not to shoot me," Stacy said. "I told him that I had a wife and kids, and that everyone in here just wanted to go home to their families." Talovic told Stacy to shut up and shot him just below the belt buckle.

In his hospital bed, Stacy peered south of his stomach and matter-of-factly said: "Everything down there that matters took a hit."

Talovic wasn't finished. He shot Stacy again in the right shoulder and a third time in the lower back. Stacy heard him reloading.

His memory after that is sketchy. He remembers seeing Ogden police officer Ken Hammond run by with a pistol in his hand. The sound of pistol and shotgun fire moved off.

The pain was enormous. He was terrified that it would make him pass out. He thought about Colleen, about whether he still had his car keys, and even about a colonoscopy he had the week before.

It was as if his mind couldn't make sense out of what was happening, so it randomly picked other things to think about. Eventually, though, Stacy's mind thought almost entirely about morphine. He pleaded for it when Hammond came back and asked him where he was hit.

As bad as his wounds hurt, the greatest pain came from seeing a teenage girl shot in the head. As he described the girl's death in words I can't bear to write, Colleen and sister-in-law Gloria Hanson cried.

Paramedics arrived and took Stacy to the hospital. People kept shouting at him. They wanted to know who they should call.

Colleen was watching the news and was terrified when she couldn't reach Stacy on his cell phone. A phone call minutes later confirmed it. She got to the hospital while Stacy was in surgery. A doctor came out and told her, "We're going to save him."

"He struggles with survivor guilt," Colleen told me later. "It's our biggest challenge right now. It got so bad that I thought he might die. He'd given up."

A desperate Colleen brought Popeye, the couple's Chihuahua, to the hospital. The scrawny, bug-eyed theory of a dog did what doctors and she couldn't do. It made Stacy smile.

A visit several days ago from Hammond and his wife also helped. The Hammonds' baby is due July 15, the Hansons' wedding anniversary.

Today, the only certainty is that Stacy's life has changed. He's paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors are optimistic, but he knows he may not be able to sail, hike or ride horses again. He's learning to focus on what's important: family, friends, and when he can have a beer.

The Hansons have always used humor as a coping mechanism. It's been harder to do that since Trolley Square. But a life spared without laughter isn't much of a life, so they look for it at every opportunity.

As Colleen Hanson left the hospital Monday night, a nurse wryly warned her not to stop off at any malls on the way home.

"Some people who haven't been through this would think that was awful," Colleen said. "But I know that's how people like us heal."