2016 NJ State PBA Convention – Phoenix, Arizona
Rising out
of the fire
Retired Phoenix officer Jason
Schechterle presents a lesson
in courage and strength
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Before even uttering a word, Jason Schechterle, the keynote
speaker on the first day of the convention, made a profound impact on the PBA membership. How could he not? Just looking at
the form of his face, the fingers missing from his right hand and
the image on the screen of the way he used to look must have
made an awestruck audience think about the hell the retired
Phoenix law enforcement officer went through to get here.
Oh, Schechterle went to hell
and back, and he lived to bring
officers just the message they
needed at a time like this.
“When something bad happens, you have three choices,” he
began. “You can let it define you.
You can let it destroy you. Or you
can let it strengthen you.”
If there is any poetic justice in
the world, somebody will base a
superhero on Schechterle, and
that only starts with the valiant
image he cuts. The story is All-American in terms of his commitment, courage and character.
This is a man who caught the loving-law-enforcement feeling
when going on ride-alongs with his older brother Michael who
was a Phoenix law enforcement officer. He was a good enough
golfer to earn a college scholarship in that sport, then after one
year left school to join the Air Force.
“The military has a great sense of humor,” Schechterle submitted. “They took a guy from Phoenix and sent him to Grand
Forks, South Dakota. I spent two glorious winters there.”
The winter soldier was working as a lineman for the city of
Phoenix on March 22, 1996 when a Phoenix officer was killed in
the line of duty. Calling it a moment of clarity, “I knew had to be
wearing a uniform.” The next day, he filled out an application,
went to the Academy in 1999, was sworn in on Jan. 10, 2000, and
at 28 years old he was working overnights and weekends and,
“life could not have been any better.”
Then came March 26, 2001.
At 11:20 p.m., a call from dispatch sent Schechterle across
town to respond to a report of a dead body in an apartment.
When hitting an intersection, he brought his patrol car to a stop
and catastrophe suddenly struck. A taxi driver suffering an epileptic seizure blasted him from behind at 115 miles per hour.
His car finally came to a stop 270 feet from the point of impact. That’s nearly the length of a football field. And it burst into
flames. Now, the reason this horrific accident didn’t destroy
Schechterle is because of “how many miracles or tests of fate,”
as he described, transpired to get him back from hell.
A fire engine responding to the same dead body call happened to be at the spot where his car finally hit a wall to stop.
Two officers also responding to the call rolled by and crawled
into his unit to pull him out by his size 13 boots. He was trapped
for approximately 90 seconds, and for 55 of those he was on fire.
One of the best burn centers in the country was just 2.5 miles
away from the accident site.
The severity of what happened only Schechterle can put into
words.
“My head, neck and face had
fourth-degree burns,” he detailed. “I had never heard of
fourth-degree. I was burned
down to the last layer of muscle.
They had to remove everything
from the neck up. Only my chest
and back didn’t have a mark on
them because of my vest. I credit
that for saving my life. The doctor said he had never seen burns
like this. Believing I was going to
pass away, the priest came in to give me last rites. There was no
way I would survive. If I did survive, I was going to be blind. And
if I could speak, they said it was not going to be very nice.
“It took 15 years and 54 surgeries to get to where I am today.”
There’s a lot more to it than that, and to read all about it,
check out his book, Burning Shield.
What’s important to note is that Schechterle didn’t let this define him, even though he said his 7-year-old daughter was intimidated by his very sight. And even though his 3-year-old son
would cry and scream, “You aren’t my daddy.”
He did see again. He did speak. And on Nov. 12, 2002, 18
months after the accident, Jason Schechterle got in his truck
and drove himself to work. He eventually realized his dream of
becoming a homicide detective and finally on Aug. 18, 2006 he
took his medical retirement.
He has had his face rebuilt using designs made by an FBI disguise specialist. He carried the Olympic Torch. He and his wife
had another son, and as soon as he finished his speech to the
PBA, Schechterle was going to coach his son’s football game.
And so it would be fair to say that he has let all of this strengthen him.
“Whatever you are going through, don’t let the pain of today
blind you from what’s coming tomorrow,” he advised. “The sun
is going to come up and you have to come up with it. All of you
will face some type of adversity. Stay in your own shoes and
think about what you are going through right now, how you can
get past it and what it will take to overcome it.”
In other words, you define it before it defines you.
www.njcopsmagazine.com
■ OCTOBER 2016 53