A Fighting Chance: Deputy Bryan Hicks’ story

POSEY CO., Ind. (WFIE) - Nearly six months ago, a Posey County Sheriff’s Deputy was shot in the line of duty while responding to a welfare check.

Now he and his family are regaining the strength to live a normal life again.

Our Jessica Costello sat down with Deputy Bryan Hicks and his wife Tammy as they recalled that traumatic night.

It happened back in September of 2021.

Police say the call started as a welfare check in the 600 block of Short Street in New Harmony.

Officials said four deputies and a town marshall responded to that call, and that’s when a man started to fire at deputies.

Once that happened, state troopers say deputies returned fire.

That man has already been identified as 70-year-old Paul Wiltshire, who recently passed from COVID-19 complications.

Wiltshire was being held in the Warrick County Jail before that.

While talking to Deputy Hicks’ wife, Tammy, we had to ask, as the wife of a law enforcement officer, was the idea of him being injured on the job always looming in the back of her mind?

“When we first started dating, he’s like there’s something you need to know about me. And I’m like, ‘OK what’s that?’ And he goes, ‘I’m always the first one in.’ He goes, ‘I will always take care of my guys.’ So was it a surprise to me that he got shot? Not really, cause I knew he would always be the first one in. Because he protects his guys,” Tammy said. “And that’s what he did.”

Deputy Hicks is now dealing with numerous health complications, including Aphasia.

Doctors say Aphasia affects a person’s ability to communicate.

So for Deputy Hicks, therapy is kind of like starting over.

“When we were still in Chicago and they were doing therapy like Uno and just like playing simple card games, but now they have him doing like hangman and more reading,” Tammy Hicks said. “His speech therapist told me the other day that he read a paragraph. I’m like, ‘How come you never told me this?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know!’ I feel like I need to have parent-teacher conferences with your therapist!”

After months of surgery and recovery, it seemed like our Tri-State communities and even communities in different states rallied behind the Hicks family.

Numerous fundraisers and events were held in support of the deputy.

However, Tammy tells us the road to recovery isn’t over yet.

Deputy Hicks basically works all week on rehabilitation.

From reading paragraphs again to playing simple card games, she tells me that he is making great strides.

But now, Tammy says a new mental block is popping up for the deputy.

“It upsets him a lot now when he sees where other officers have been shot that haven’t survived, and he gets upset and he’s like, you know, ‘Why wasn’t that me?’ And I’m like, ‘Because you’re left here to make a difference,’” Tammy told us.

She also says that kind of attitude has always been him, always focused on protecting his guys first and then worrying about himself.

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