INDIANAPOLIS -
Both of the EMT's who died from their injuries from Saturday's ambulance accident spent their lives helping others. That is what makes their families most proud.
Timothy McCormick's mother, Rosemary, talked with Eyewitness News by phone Sunday from her home in New York, about her son, his service and this unimaginable loss.
The love for her son is evident in a picture of the McCormick family taken outside the Indiana War Memorial.
They're arm in arm, with beaming smiles.
The pride in Rosemary McCormick's voice when she talks about Timothy, is very clear, too.
"Tim was one of a kind," she said. "He was brilliant. He was smart. He was intelligent. He was political. He was passionate."
When Rosemary and her husband, Robert, learned Saturday that their 24-year-old son had been killed in an ambulance accident, it was a heartbreaking blow.
Her voice trembled, as she recounted hearing the news.
"At about 7:30 in the morning, the police rang our doorbell here in Staten Island," McCormick explained, "and they came in and said, 'are you the mother of Timothy McCormick who lives in Indiana?' And that's all I had to know. I said, 'did you come here to tell me my son is dead?' And they said yes."
Rosemary says there are so many things she'll miss about her son - his humor, his drive, his intellect.
He became an eagle scout in high school.
He loved track.
And while she said he wasn't the greatest athlete, he was very good and hated to lose.
His mother said her son always wanted to win for the team, and because of his drive to succeed, he usually did.
As an openly gay man, Timothy McCormick encouraged others to be themselves.
It's evident in a video he created while at IUPUI, called "It Gets Better."
"Today and yesterday when we ran that (video) back, it brought a lot of tears, but I couldn't be prouder of him. He knew what it was like. Tim was a gay man," she said. "He was open about his sexuality and we loved and accepted him and knew who he was."
Tim dedicated his life to helping people.
His mother says he embodied the motto at his high school in New York - "Men For Others".
"That is the code by which Tim lived his life. He was a man for others. He was all about service," she said.
As an EMT here in Indianapolis, Timothy McCormick showcased that service and selfless spirit in some of our city's most difficult and high-profile tragedies.
"He was there when there was that house explosion that took down the houses and blew up half a neighborhood. He was the first bus on the scene. He was there at that concert where the big wind blew down at the State Fair. He was the second ambulance on the scene for that one. Whenever there was a need, he would rush in. That's just what he did," his mother explained, "and we loved him. We loved him."
Rosemary McCormick said she and her husband will be in Indianapolis Monday for the memorial service and subsequent funeral mass for their son.
She asks that people wanting to contribute, do so to Timothy McCormick's high school in New York.
The family is setting up a fund, in hopes of creating a scholarship in their son's name. The information will be posted on his school's website.
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