Maine shooting victim of Robert Card clinging to life

The first person shot by Robert Card in this week’s mass sooting in Maine is fighting for his life on a ventilator in the intensive care unit, his family said.

The hardest part is “not knowing what the outcome is going to be,” Justin Karcher’s younger sister Haley Breton said on NewsNation’s “Cuomo.”

Karcher, 23, was playing pool with his best friend and the friend’s dad, who survived.

Telling her brother that his best friend was among the 18 victims killed in Wednesday’s massacre will be another challenge, Breton said.

“That’s going to be a hard topic to talk about when the time is right.”

Karcher was shot in the liver, spinal cord, shoulder and stomach when Card fired into Schemengees Bar & Grille in Lewiston, minutes after shooting into a nearby bowling alley.

“When the EMTs brought him in, they did tell the surgeon that he was the first one that was shot and he was the first one in surgery,” Breton told the program.

Doctors had to check his stomach and kidneys for bullets, she said. Repeated resuscitations were needed to keep him alive following the emergency surgery.

Karcher was one of the 13 injured in the massacre, which is now the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history. Card was found dead Friday night with self-inflicted gunshot wounds, according to authorities.

It was was supposed to be a day for celebration, Karcher’s mother told The New York Times, as her son had just signed a contract to buy a house.

He was at the bar for a weekly pool tournament, one of his many hobbies, Jessica Karcher told the outlet.

This isn’t the first time the family has endured tragedy, Breton said.

In 2019, Karcher’s father was shot and killed in front of him in a Walmart parking lot.

“This is the second time that the family has been involved in a situation, a shooting … it’s tragic and it’s hard to put it all together and understand why,” said Breton.