Pole Reunited With Family After Being Shot on Job to Help Disabled Son

A Polish man who came to the United States to earn money for an operation for his handicapped son but was shot in the face by robbers last month was reunited with his family Friday, hoisting his son in his arms.

“I am glad I had the opportunity to come to America,” Witold Wroblewski, 38, declared through a translator, holding his son, Wojciech, 6, close at Kennedy International Airport.

The boy, dressed in green overalls and a red jacket, smiled shyly as he was lifted from his wheelchair and whispered in his father’s ear.

“I asked my son, ‘Do you recognize me?’ ” Wroblewski said softly, his jaws still wired together with a large plastic brace required to heal from his wounds. He also must wear an aluminum patch over his left eye.

“He said, ‘Yes, I did.’ ”

Wojciech came to the United States from Bialystok, Poland, last November to raise money for an operation for his son, who has been unable to walk since infancy, and got a job at a gas station in Long Island.

He was shot June 4 through the glass door to the station when he saw two men approaching, suspected a robbery and locked the entrance.