Walker Hughes is a gentle, 35-year-old man with autism. At 6 feet, 3 in., he’s a big guy who has difficulty verbalizing his thoughts. A few years ago, he became violent toward his parents after taking new medicine. They rushed him to the emergency room and on the way, Walker bit his mother’s hand, drawing blood. He was quickly surrounded by public safety officers in bulletproof vests. One of those men was Sergeant Keith Miller. Walker Hughes’ mother, Ellen, said the public safety officer “worked a miracle for my son that I’ll never forget.”
At the StoryCorps booth in Chicago, Ellen Hughes sat with Miller and recalled how things unfolded that day.
Special thanks to Mary Schmich who first wrote about Ellen and Keith in the Chicago Tribune.
Bill Healy produces StoryCorps Chicago for WBEZ and teaches journalism at Northwestern University. A podcast he produced was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting. Follow him @chicagoan.
