After her son was hit by a car, transported by helicopter to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery, Tammy Hussey didn’t know how things could get much worse. But they did.

Hussey became a victim of theft at Baptist South Hospital in Montgomery about 9:45 Wednesday morning. When Hussey stepped away from the intensive care waiting room to get breakfast, a man stole Hussey’s laptop, overnight bag, her son’s wallet, check book, state ID card and several other items. All the cash she had with her, except $30 she’d put in her purse, was in the bottom of the briefcase with her laptop.

“The only thing he left was the blanket and pillow,” Hussey said. She had thought her things would be safe because of all the people she’d spent time with in the waiting room, the nurses and security. But she was wrong.

“He moved the blanket. He moved the sleeping bag. He saw the overnight case and he grabbed that and the brief case and just walked out.”

Hussey said she and the thief passed in the elevators. He was caught on camera getting into the elevator on the 6th floor heading to the lobby at the same time Hussey was in the second elevator heading back to SICU.

“I just missed him by seconds,” Hussey said.

Hussey’s son, Hobi, 21, is the Alabama Department of Transportation flagman who was hit by a car while working on U.S. Hwy. 29 on Dec. 14. He is still unconscious due to heavy sedation by doctors.

“My child is still in critical care, and they had to take everything,” Hussey’s voice broke as she spoke.

Although Hobi is doing well recovering from having his spleen removed and rods put into his legs, his mother said injuries to his chest area were severe.

“His lung and chest are still so badly damaged that we can’t take him off the ventilator and we can’t wake him up,” Hussey said. “Doctors don’t want him having knowledge of what is happening to him. My child doesn’t even know he’s in the world. He’s so sedated.”

Hussey said Hobi has also developed pneumonia.

Baptist Hospital security cameras caught the thief on tape and have provided photos to the Montgomery Police Department and filed a report with them. Although, Hussey said, officers didn’t give her much hope her property will be returned.