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Crisis counselors attempt to allay fears of workers in the aftermath
Saturday, March 04, 2000 By Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A day after the McDonald's Corp. brought in crisis counselors to speak with the staff at its Wilkinsburg restaurant, the Greensburg company that owns the Wilkinsburg Burger King offered crisis counseling to its workers.
All seven employees who were present Wednesday when Joseph Healy was fatally shot attended the three-hour counseling session at the Burger King, said Jim Stover, vice-president of operations for the restaurant owner, Hoffman Restaurant Group.
Immediately after the shooting, several of the workers said they were quitting and would not come back in the restaurant, Stover said. However, the employees reconsidered in the nearly 48 hours between the shooting and the counseling session and decided to return to work when the store re-opens tomorrow, Stover said.
"Everybody was probably traumatized and upset, but they're all a lot better now than they were a couple days ago," he said.
Most of those on duty Wednesday knew Healy because of his daily visits to Burger King, Stover said. Healy, 71, a former priest from Wilkinsburg, was sitting in his regular booth at the rear of the restaurant when he was shot.
Although McDonald's offered counseling Thursday to its employees after one of its assistant managers was shot, the company refused to respond to media inquiries at the Wilkinsburg store and in telephone calls to its regional headquarters in Moon.
The Penn Avenue McDonald's was the scene of the most carnage in Wednesday's shooting rampage. In addition to assistant manager Steven Bostard, 25, of Swissvale, also shot were Richard Clinger, 56, of North Huntingdon, and Emil Sanielevici, 20, of Greenfield.
Sanielevici died Thursday evening. Bostard and Clinger remain in critical condition at UPMC Presbyterian.
Bostard, who worked at McDonald's for the past three years, lives with his mother and teen-age sister in a Swissvale row house. In addition to his work at McDonald's, Bostard and his older brother also work part-time at the Manor Theater in Squirrel Hill.
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