Grateful for LIFE

Today was one of those days where you just throw your hands up in the air and say, "Why me?"

And then, something happens that really makes you grateful to just be alive.  Today was one of those days.

While sitting in a restaurant with a bunch of our employees for a recognition lunch, I just happened to look over at the table next to us and I saw a face that I knew.  I knew this face only because of his face.  I didn't know him personally.  I just knew his face.  I knew it immediately.  It is hard to not see this face and NOT know who he is...or was...or is.  And as soon as I saw it, my whole outlook on the day changed.  All the frustrations - a little less frustrating.  All the irritations - a little less irritating.  Life - so much more important and so much more grateful for it.

This is who I saw:

His name is Jason Schecterle and back in 2001, he was a police officer for the city of Phoenix.  He had only been a cop for 14 months when a terrible tragedy struck.  The story is below.  As I looked at this man across the way from me today, I was truly grateful to my father in heaven for my life.  For protecting me on a day to day basis.  For not letting this happen to me.  And...for helping Jason to heal - as best as is possible at this time.

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A young Phoenix cop who knew it was a bad way of dying is forced to confront the agonizing prospect of living

By Pauline Arrillaga
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHOENIX

He had been a cop only a few months when he was called to his first major fire. An apartment was engulfed, and a bystander shouted that someone could be inside.  Another officer ran to the back of the building while Jason Schechterle stood at the front, alone, facing the flames, feeling the heat.  The fire devoured everything in its path. He couldn't see walls, couldn't see ceiling, couldn't see furniture - only the inferno.

Afterward, Jason peered through a window. Two bodies lay on a charred bed, skeletons without hair, skin, features. Nothing that resembled a human being.  He thought, "what a way to die."  Fire had always been among his greatest fears.

NIGHTLY CALL TO HIS WIFE
Cruising the nighttime streets of Phoenix, the 28-year-old policeman punched the numbers into his cellphone, calling home.  "I haven't seen you in God only knows how long," Jason Schechterle cooed to his wife, Suzie.  "You have a lot of making up to do, buddy," she teased.

It was their nightly call, a ritual since Jason joined the Phoenix Police Department 14 months earlier. Suzie had opposed his idea to quit the power company and join the force; she was worried, naturally. But when Jason offered to give up his dream for her, she had to support him.  The phone calls helped calm her nerves, and on this night, March 26, 2001, they were even more flirtatious than usual. Jason had stayed over at his partner's house the day before to help install a sprinkler system. Now he had just two hours left on duty before heading home.  "I'm gonna get in bed and snuggle right up next to you," he said.  "I'll hold you to it," Suzie said, laughing, more like a schoolgirl than a 30-year-old mother of two.  Then the emergency tone sounded across Jason's patrol car radio, and a call came crackling in.  "Unknown trouble. 2735 East Thomas," the dispatcher intoned. 

No response.

The dispatcher repeated the call and gave a rundown: Dried blood inside an apartment. 

Again, no response.

It wasn't in his immediate area. It would surely mean working late. But it sounded like a possible dead body, and no one was responding.  Jason put Suzie on hold.   "513 Henry," he radioed. "I'll start up."  He went back to his wife.  "Baby, I need to go. I'm en route."   Jason flipped on his lights.  It was 11:17 p.m.

AN INNOCENT CAB RIDE
Moments earlier, groceries in hand, Lawrence Tracy had hailed a cab to head home from the market.  "24th Street and Thomas," he said, climbing in.  The cab turned onto Thomas Road but suddenly jerked and ran up on a curb.  "Are you OK?" Tracy asked, but the driver said nothing. Instead, the cab picked up speed, lurching down the street as light poles and signs whizzed by. 
"Slow down!" Tracy pleaded. The driver didn't respond.  The cab flew through several green lights. Then Tracy saw the next light, at 20th Street and Thomas, change. 

Yellow . . . The car in front slowed to a stop.

Red . . . The cab swerved to avoid the vehicle. To its left, a police car was stopped with its lights on.  Tracy grabbed the seat and braced for impact. 
SUDDENLY, A FIREBALL
Phoenix Fire Engine No. 5 also had just been dispatched. It wasn't an emergency, so when a light at a highway exit ramp near 20th and Thomas turned red, the truck rolled to a stop.  It was 11:21 p.m. 
Suddenly, there was a fireball.

Capt. Michael Ore's crew jumped out of the engine and began unraveling the hose. Then Ore saw the flashing lights. 
"We're on the scene of a 962!" he shouted into the radio, giving the code for an accident with injuries. "Give me a first-alarm medical. Police car involved."

And then: "Trapped victim!"

Flames licked at the broken frame of the patrol car, its back seat crushed by the impact. Inside, thick black smoke formed like a storm cloud in the front seat. Ore couldn't see through it, but he knew someone was inside. 

"Hurry up!" he yelled to his crew. "There's a man burning to death in there!"

Darren Boyce aimed the hose inside the car while rookie Henry Narvaez fought to open the driver's door. "I can't get it open!" Narvaez shouted as a small explosion ripped through the right side of the car, sending flames shooting in all directions.

Ore tossed an ax to Narvaez, who broke through the window. Boyce kept the flames at bay, but the front seat was smoldering beneath the smoke and steam. The stench of melted plastic filled Ore's nostrils as he and Narvaez tugged at the officer, fighting to free him.

But he was still strapped into his seat belt, and they couldn't get to the latch.  "Get a knife!" Ore screamed.  A policeman who'd just arrived sliced through the seat belt, while a second officer loosened the legs. Together the men pulled the officer through the window just as an ambulance drove up.

As they shoved him onto the gurney, a piece of skin peeled off the officer's arm - revealing a small patch of white on an otherwise blackened man. Ore, a 26-year veteran, was stricken.

"I'm not sure we did this guy a favor," he thought as the ambulance pulled away.

PARTNER DOES A DIFFICULT CHORE
Suzie Schechterle never heard the doorbell. She only remembers being jostled awake and opening her eyes to the sight of her husband's partner, Bryan Chapman. He'd been let in by her mother, who was visiting.

Suzie knew the deal Jason and Bryan had made when they joined the force. If something happened to either of them, the other would notify his wife. And now here was Bryan, kneeling at her bedside.

Suzie sat up on her knees, cupped her hands to her mouth and let out a shriek.

"No-o-o!"

"Jason's been in a very bad accident," Bryan was saying. "Another car hit him. He's in bad shape."

Arriving at Maricopa Medical Center, she had no idea what she was in for. As Bryan led her through the emergency room and into the bowels of the hospital, she didn't see the placard reading "Arizona Burn Center." The waiting area was a sea of police uniforms, and it parted as Suzie passed through. She noticed the police chaplain. Was her husband dead?

Bryan led her through some double doors to a sink, where someone washed her hands. She wasn't sure why. She heard a mention of fire and thought that perhaps Jason had been singed. The corridor smelled of rotten eggs.

Ushered into a conference room, she saw Jason's parents, brother and sister.  Then a burly man in aqua operating scrubs walked in, Dr. Daniel Caruso. The brusque, plain-spoken chief of the Arizona Burn Center held nothing back.

"Your husband sustained third-degree, if not worse, burns to his head," he told Suzie, explaining that much of Jason's face had been lost to the fire. The ears. The nose. The hands were bad, too.

"We have to remove the burns," he finished, "or he'll have no chance of survival."

Caruso pushed some forms in front of Suzie and told her to sign. There was no time to waste.

He asked if she wanted to see her husband, but Suzie knew she couldn't. Not now, not like this. Just hours earlier, she had said it all. He knew how much she loved him.

"Please," she begged, grabbing Caruso before he left. "Whatever you have to do, just save him."

"I'll do my best," the doctor replied.

FOURTH-DEGREE BURNS
The team had assembled: Caruso and Dr. Kevin Foster, co-directors of the burn unit, and Dr. Clifford Smith, the chief resident.

Caruso and Smith had been at home, getting ready for bed, when their pagers went off. Once they got to the hospital, they called in Foster for another pair of hands. None of them had ever seen anything like this.

The burns had consumed the skin, tissue and fat in Jason's head, face and neck. His forehead was scorched right through to the skull. His hands were seared down to the tendons.

When Caruso first got to the hospital, he ran his gloved hands over Jason's head. It was hard as oak - a sign of fourth-degree burns, as severe as they get. Third-degree burns sear through every skin layer; fourth-degree burns go farther, eating through other tissue and fat.

Caruso was surprised this patient was alive. If a person's whole head is burned, the airway usually gets clogged with smoke. It swells shut, and he's gone.

But at least in terms of timing, everything had worked in Jason's favor. Firefighters happened to be on the scene when the accident occurred. An ambulance arrived just as they cut him out, and an airway was quickly established. And he was young, only 28, and in good shape.

Caruso's mind raced. As serious as the injuries were, the treatment was the same as for any severe burn: Remove the dead skin and graft over it with new skin. Usually, he would wait a few days before beginning the excision to see how the burns progressed, but these were already too serious.

The doctor knew if he didn't operate immediately, infection would set in and Jason could die.

In a stark white chamber, a priest performed last rites as Jason lay on a table under a spotlight. A feeding tube snaked into his stomach while a tracheotomy tube extended from his neck to help him breathe.

The room was stifling. Temperatures climbing above 90 degrees were necessary to compensate for any drop in Jason's body temperature due to the loss of skin.

Caruso took his place at the end of the table, ready to begin on the top of Jason's head. Foster and Smith lined up alongside the face. Using handheld knife blades akin to cheese graters, the doctors went to work, peeling back layer upon layer of scorched skin.

They were looking for any sign of life beneath the burns. Dead tissue resembles worn leather. Healthy tissue looks like medium-rare steak.

Healthy tissue bleeds.

With each swipe, the realization set in of just how badly this patient was injured. With each swipe, there was no blood.

Caruso traded the blade for an electronic, pen-sized instrument that cuts even deeper. He sliced through a swath of skin and pulled it from Jason's head.

Still, no blood.

Slice, pull. No blood.

Caruso stopped.

"Just what the hell are we doing here?" he demanded, unable to mask his own disgust. "We're about to take off this guy's entire face."

Still, the doctor knew if there was a way to save him, this was it. He worked on, though his misgivings would not go away.

"We're removing this guy's complete identity," he thought. "We're going to subject him to surviving this."

Each doctor was thinking the same thing: If I were on the table, I'd rather die.

None of them had ever excised burns this deep from a man's head and face. They had no idea what to expect. But they had no choice, either: A doctor's duty is to do everything possible.

Slice, pull. No blood.

In the hot operating room, hours passed as more skin came off, and the surgeons' few words grew more and more grim.

"It's not bleeding," one groaned.

"There's nothing," said another.

"Oh my G--, I'm down to muscle."

And then: "I'm down to bone."

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And so, that is what happened to Jason Schecterle.  He did survive and was smiling and laughing and enjoying life in this little barbecue restaurant.  And today I promised myself to remember that no matter how bad a day can seem to be, it will never be as bad as what he went through.

(There are two more parts to this story if interested in reading it:  Part 2 and Part 3)