'I was just helping her'

SEATTLE -- Five weeks ago, Joseph Skillings' act of kindness changed his life forever.

On January 13, Skillings, an award-winning elementary school teacher, called 911 to report a man who was harassing a woman at a Capitol Hill bus stop.

"I was helping the lady, and I felt that she was having a tough time. So I kind of stepped in verbally, and then he came in from the outside and that's how that whole thing got... 'cause I got hit by the head," Skillings says.

"I was just helping her."

While Skillings was making the 911 call, the man who had been harassing the woman turned and punched Skillings in the side of the head.

The blow knocked Skillings to the ground, causing him to hit his head on the cement sidewalk. The attacker ran off, leaving Skillings unconscious, bleeding, and seizing.

He spent days in the intensive care unit at Harborview Medical Center and continues to undergo regular speech therapy, hoping he can regain the abilities the attack took from him.

"I'm working with therapists that are helping me get my... cause my head is a little bit unratched in some areas," he says, still struggling to get the right words out.

Skillings' friends say he's still friendly and trusting, but he hasn't been the same since the attack.

"He knows what happened to him now. He's familiar with that," said friend Aaron Mahany. "But when he talks about it, he just grabs his head and says 'it messed me up. I'm trying to fix my head.'"

Get-well cards and posters continue to arrive from his second and third grade students at the school where he's worked for more than 15 years, and the sign outside Adams Elementary reads "Get Well Mr. Skillings. We love and miss you!"

But now the teacher who helped so many needs assistance 24 hours a day.

"Speech therapy is really where we're doing a lot of focus right now because he's having trouble expressing himself finding the right word at the end of a sentence," Mahany said. "And for a teacher that's very important."

Every friend gets him one step closer to his goal of getting back to school.

"We're hopeful, but it could be a year," Mahany said. "It could be five."  

The truth is, no one knows when Skillings will be able to resume teaching, his students are learning an important life lesson.

"You always stand up with the kids to help them stand up on their own," Skillings says. "You exemplify that as a teacher to help them get through stuff like that.

"I want to get better and do my job. It's going to take me a while to get back on board."

The attacker remains at large, and Skillings has more medical bills than he can count.

His friends are asking fellow teachers to donate their sick days, and the public can donate to the Skillings Recovery Fund at any Bank of America branch.