Louisiana Officer Relearns Survival
)
Brusly, LA - 9/4/2001
Baton Rouge Advocate
By CHRIS FRINK
Westside bureau
Kenny Paul II remembers only a little about the early morning hours of
Feb. 12, 1997, the day his life changed and almost came to an end.
He was 20, a rookie cop on the Plaquemine police force for less than
eight weeks, when he and his partner answered a call to back up
Iberville sheriff's deputies investigating a shooting.
While cruising the pre-dawn darkness in a rough neighborhood just
outside the city limits, they came across a man in a hooded
sweatshirt. They stopped and got out of the car.
Kenny's partner told the man to take his hands out of his pockets. The
man did. His right hand held a .38-caliber revolver and, from about 6
feet away, he shot Paul in the forehead.
"I remember the gun flash go off when he shot me," Kenny said.
His next memory: awakening weeks later in a hospital bed surprised to
find that he was wearing a diaper. Paul had to signal his shock to a
nurse with gestures. The ventilator tube in the base of his throat
prevented speech.
"I had no idea what happened to me," he said.
That awakening -- the half-joking, gestured question about his diaper
-- was but one of a string of miracles for the shooting victim's
father, Kenneth Paul Sr.
The first miracle was that his son survived the shooting at all.
Doctors gave Kenneth Paul, then a sergeant with the Port Allen Police
Department, and his wife little hope.
"It was all just kind of slow-mo, surreal. They said his brain is full
of bullet fragments. His brain is going to swell, and he's going to
die," the father said. "I'm looking at them like they're crazy."
Kenneth Paul lost his temper with a team of hospital staffers who
asked about donating his son's organs. "It just aggravated the surreal
nightmare."
The nightmare grew deeper.
Less than a year after the shooting, Jackie Paul, Kenneth Paul's wife
of 23 years, lost her long fight with cancer. "She'd been battling
that for a year and half. The only reason she hung on was because of
him."
With a constant vigil by family and friends, Kenny Paul pulled through
the coma, months of intensive care, a bout with pneumonia, the loss of
60 pounds and stints in several rehabilitation hospitals. They played
hour after hour of gospel songs for him on headphones, even while he
was in the coma.
Finally, almost a year after the shooting, Kenny Paul came home where
his father, now retired, could help care for him.
At first glance, Kenny Paul's disabilities are obvious.
The 24-year-old is tall and strong, but his left leg moves stiffly,
leaving him with a limp. His left arm hangs at his side, bent at the
elbow, with the hand almost clasped. A quarter-sized, indented scar in
the flesh at the base of his throat remains from the breathing tube.
A reconstructed skull under the flesh of his forehead left no obvious
trace of the bullet wound.
Kenny Paul's head lists to the right, and he speaks with some
difficulty. A hard plastic prosthesis that fits against the roof of
his mouth helps him talk. He's learned to speak slowly and enunciate
in order to be understood, especially while addressing strangers.
"When people don't understand me, it intimidates them," Kenny Paul
said.
He still suffers from seizures, massive events that leave him hurting
and exhausted. "It's like a charley horse all over your body," he
said.
On his own, he's learned to control his breathing and not
hyperventilate. "The worst thing you can do is get scared," he said.
"Auras," where his vision narrows and he sees spots, precede the
seizures and give him time to get somewhere safe, such as the living
room recliner, where he can ride out the events.
A recent change in medications reduced the frequency of the seizures
(he hasn't had one in months), but his father and doctors are
considering an operation to remove brain lesions to reduce or
eliminate the episodes.
Kenny Paul and his father both discuss his condition with smiles,
laughter and a sense of humor. Kenneth Paul likens having a seizure to
riding a bull in a rodeo, and his son mimics a bull rider in action.
Kenny Paul is often winking, smiling and cracking jokes.
The day he was shot, Warren Williams, a neurosurgeon at Our Lady of
the Lake Regional Medical Center, told Kenny Paul's father that if he
survived, his personality and intellect would be intact.
"He was right," Kenneth Paul said.
Kenny Paul's ordeal continues.
He'd married in late 1996, and his daughter was born 51/2 weeks before
the shooting. About a year ago, his wife left him and took their
daughter to live in Avoyelles Parish. "It was too much baggage for her
to handle," Kenny Paul said.
The couple is now divorced.
Kenny Paul plans to make a two-week visit to an occupational therapy
program in Covington to relearn such life skills as cooking and
cleaning. A year's time without a seizure is the first step toward
regaining his driving privileges and freedom.
"He needs to get away from me," Kenneth Paul said, only half-joking.
Kenny Paul is considering auditing a college sociology course as a
move toward continuing his education and hopes to make a career in law
enforcement in a job off the street. He also hopes to remarry and
start another family.
At this stage, every inch of improvement is worth a mile, Kenneth Paul
said.
The man who shot Kenny Paul pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree
murder in 1996 and is serving a 50-year sentence.
Kenneth Paul would like to see the shooter have to suffer something
similar every time his son has a seizure.
His son is more forgiving.
"At first I was mad. I had just started a family. ... But I know that
everything that happened is God's will. I'm just glad to be alive and
enjoying my daughter, watching her grow up," Kenny Paul said.
"God is a God of His time. He'll heal me slowly but surely."
Ken [NY]
--
Chairperson,
Department of Redundancy Department
____________________________________
To do is to be - Socrates
To be is to do - Sartre
Do be do be do - Sinatra
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