Sept. 11--FLORISSANT -- Police Officer Michael Vernon knows firsthand the hazards of his job.
On May 28, he was shot three times by a burglary suspect -- a shooting that has left him paralyzed from the waist down.
He spent a week in the hospital. From Memorial Day through Labor Day weekends he stayed in a rehabilitation center. Just recently he was able to move home.
He says he knows his life isn't over. "I wasn't done yet," he said. "I have things to do."
On Monday night at Florissant City Hall, Vernon, 33, received the city's Purple Heart award. He joined a dispatcher, 10 officers and a K-9 officer who also received commendations for their work after the shooting.
Vernon, known as a positive guy around the police department before the incident, remains positive.
"I try not to reflect on the day," he said. "What happened, happened. This is where I am today, and we can't change anything, so I try to make the best of it."
On that early morning in May, Vernon had been looking for the burglary suspect behind a strip mall in the 2800 block of North Lindbergh Boulevard and found a pair of shorts in a trash bin that seemed out of place.
That's when police said Brian Lamon Cannon Jr. emerged and fired from about five feet away.
One bullet went through Vernon's left calf; another hit him in the right shoulder. The impact spun him around, exposing the part of his left torso unprotected by a bullet-resistant vest.
Another bullet then entered his body just underneath his arm, piercing his lungs and lodging in his spine.
His wife, Farrah, remembers the knock at her door early that morning. Always nervous when her husband worked late shifts, she didn't want to answer. So she tried calling Vernon. No answer.
When she opened the door, she saw police Capt. Sean Fagan. He said they had to get to the hospital right away.
She remembers seeing her husband in the emergency room bay, and even though he could talk to her, a chaplain read him his last rites.
Since the shooting, the Vernons have been overwhelmed by support.
Colleagues, businesses and citizens have donated time and money through several fundraisers: barbecues, raffles, a washers tournament and a hair-cut-a-thon at a Florissant salon. A week after the incident, about 5,000 people showed up at Joe's Pub in Florissant for a fundraiser. There's also an upcoming golf tournament, trivia night, car show and a Michael Vernon night at Busch Stadium.
The Vernons, who have no children, spent their two-year wedding anniversary in June at the Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis.
"That's my better half, my right arm, my left arm, everything," he said of his wife, a medical resident at Des Peres Hospital.
Vernon, one of eight children, had a constant stream of visitors while he was in rehab, he said.
Officers from other departments who had been injured in the line of duty came to visit. People from across the country sent cards, saying they were praying for him. Those prayers and his own faith have helped, he said.
"If these people can take time to pray to God for my well-being, then why can't I? From where I'm sitting today, somebody sent out a lot of prayers."
Vernon says he has had some dark moments. And he will have his day in court to say what he wants to his attacker -- whose name Vernon doesn't even remember.
Now, the Vernons are settling into their new one-story home in Florissant. They had to move from a three-story town house in Maryland Heights. They've had to buy new furniture, and Vernon had to sell his fun yet impractical Camaro for a low-riding, wheelchair-storing Ford Titanium Flex. They're adapting to a new normal.
Vernon says he doesn't know what the future holds. He spent seven years with the Florissant police -- three as a corrections officer and four on patrol. He is an Army veteran who served twice in Iraq. The military was his plan A, the police department his plan B, and he has yet to figure out his plan C, he said.
"My legs don't work. That's what I tell people -- that's the only thing that doesn't work," he said. "I get to roll around everywhere. I just sometimes have to sit around and wait for people to catch up."
Copyright 2012 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
