The following is my neighbor John Wilson’s account of an event that occurred recently. I’m posting it because his story was not included in news accounts.-MK

The bad news is we were the victims of a violent home invasion. The good news is we survived.

It happened in broad daylight with the lone intruder entering through the kitchen window at about 5:35 p.m. Friday, March 22, at our home on Bartlett Avenue East, Omak.

Our ten-pound dog, Cricket, tried to warn us but we’ve only had him a few months. He barks at any normal neighborhood noises, and we thought that was what was going on.

Tonya, 73, was punched twice in the face and hit repeatedly over the head with an end table. I’m 82 and was punched twice in the face as I tried to fight him off. I knew I had to last long enough to call 911. We couldn’t survive on our own.

The assailant is a 27-year-old University of Washington student with no connection to us or Omak. He wanted our truck to leave Omak.

When I finally understood he wanted our truck, I told him where the keys were. He got the keys and left, and I called 911.

He crashed the truck 100 feet away into a neighbor’s fence and high-centered it on the manhole cover that protrudes above the ground. He was walking three houses north of us when two sheriff’s deputies arrived. He tried to disarm one of them, punched the other officer twice in the face and was finally subdued.

Tonya suffered a concussion and a lot of facial bruising, plus other injuries. She is very sore, has a constant headache and, of course, PTSD.

I got a broken tooth, split lip, and a black eye. I have a few symptoms of concussion but I am doing much better than Tonya. (I wasn’t hit over the head repeatedly with a table.)

There is much more to the story, some of it good and some of it appalling. We went to the ER but left without being seen. Tonya returned a second time, got a CT scan, was told she had a concussion and was discharged without ever being examined by the doctor.

The turnout and concern shown by the Omak police officers and sheriff’s deputies who responded were wonderful. We were in good hands with them.

We are home, glad to be alive and working on returning to a peaceful life. The truck escaped serious damage.

And Cricket? Tonya couldn’t locate him and thought he had been killed. She searched and found him curled into a tiny ball, trembling against the wall in the TV-computer room where I had my battle.