Aurora Theater Shooting Victim's Son Is His Motivation In Recovery

FLORENCE, Colo. (CBS4) - Twelve people were killed in the Aurora theater shootings. The youngest was just 6 and the oldest was 51. In the end a total of 70 people were shot, with many sustaining life changing injuries. One of them was Caleb Medley, the last victim to leave the hospital.

CBS4's Suzanne McCarroll visited with Caleb's family and his young son, Hugo, who came into the world on the worst of weeks. Four days after his father was shot six times at the theater, Hugo was born.

"It was some hard work getting him into this world, but it was worth every single minute of it," Caleb's wife Katie said. "I was just so happy he was safe more than anything."

Before the shooting Caleb was a standup comedian. Now he must learn to stand up all over again.

"He is able to stand up with assistance. Once he stands up he is supporting himself; which he came from bedridden to that place," Caleb's father Otis Medley said.

Caleb has had six surgeries and has multiple shunts in his brain.

"A year later we're still at the beginning; he still has a very long way to go," Katie said.

Katie is incredibly protective of her husband and asked that CBS4 not videotape his rehab.

"We go to therapy and Caleb doesn't want to do stuff, but he always does because he knows he has to," Katie said.

"How do you motivate him?" McCarroll asked Katie. "Hugo does, I don't' have to do anything," she replied.

After the shooting, Katie, Hugo and Caleb moved back to Florence, Colo. It's a small community that has welcomed them home.

"There is no way our family could have gone and done the things that we've done and been through the things that we've been through without the Lord," Otis said.

Otis is the town's Baptist minister. His daily prayers are directed toward helping his son get better.

"I'd like for him to be able to walk, chase his kid, take his kid fishing," Otis said.

Caleb and Katie were high school sweethearts who never imagined how one night watching a movie would test their love.

"We got married pretty young but when we did we knew it would be forever, and I think to myself all the time that if we were switched Caleb would do 100 times better," Katie said.

Baby Hugo has provided the family with joy during some very dark days, and he's made it easy to focus on the future.

"Just us as a family being happy; that's all I want for my son, for my husband, for myself, for us as a family to be happy," Katie said.

From all across the world people continue sending the family cards -- many drawn by children wishing them well.

And at the far end of town on a dusty road the minister of the Baptist Church has a congregation praying for a little boy, his mother and his father.

In the last couple of days Hugo has started to walk on his own. The hope is that will help Caleb to take his first steps as well.