BALLWIN • Customers packed more than 23 Ballwin area restaurants Monday as a part of a fundraiser for officer Michael Flamion, who was shot in the neck last week during a traffic stop.

The restaurants pledged portions of the day's proceeds to support Flamion and his family, the same day the Ballwin Police Department announced publicly that Flamion's injuries left him paralyzed from the neck down.

Ballwin native Katie Zaitz-Fink, who planned the event, said she knew Flamion faced a long road to recovery as soon as she heard he'd been shot through the neck about two miles from her home. A car accident in 1997 in Jacksonville, Fla., left Zaitz-Fink with a herniated neck injury for nine months.

“I had substantial medical bills, and my injury was nowhere near the severity of his,” she said. “I knew he was going to have a much harder road to recovery.”

She wanted to do something to help.

“He risked his own life for me and the Ballwin community every day without a second thought,” she said. “It's only right that we support him in return.”