“ I was focused on where the suspect was heading,” Vadell detailed.“ He got off a lucky shot. I heard the gunshot. I felt it hit my head. I went down. I was lying there and I remember hearing Tommy return fire. It sounded like an automatic weapon. I couldn’ t move, but I was acutely aware.”
McCabe’ s next quick response probably saved Vadell’ s life. He called for an ambulance but decided not to wait. He and other officers who responded lifted Josh into the backseat of a patrol car. McCabe sat on his chest and applied pressure to the wound.“ All I could feel was the plastic from the backseat sticking into me,” Vadell recalled.“ And I’ m looking at Tommy, thinking,‘ Who is driving the car?”
When they reached the hospital, the AtlantiCare trauma team responded and, before even wondering about the severity of the wound, Vadell felt nurses cut away his uniform.
“ That uniform was expensive,” he interjected.“ I remember saying,“ Who is going to pay for that?”
If you haven’ t figured it by now, humor has been one of Vadell’ s best medicines, next to Laura’ s round-the-clock care and the support of his Local 24 members and officers throughout the state. If you are wondering what a near-death experience feels like, Vadell related his in a way that is almost calming, even reassuring.
“ Visions almost like a movie reel,” he expressed.“ As I was lying there, I saw my wife before I went to work that day, sitting out in front of our house, watching our daughter ride her scooter and looking at her pregnant belly. I was holding her hand. I’ m thinking,‘ I’ m going to get back to that.’”
The ensuing 12 days, he admitted, were a bit of a haze. Vadell described one dream he kept having that his room in the intensive care unit was like a giant pizza box.“ I didn’ t want to leave my pizza box. It was so cozy,” he added.
He praised his medical team, calling them“ all the king’ s horses and all the king’ s men.” And he said the moment he will never
Josh Vadell shows that his recovery from the gunshot wound to his head a year ago has progressed to being able to use his left arm again.
forget, the one that enabled him to rise up and walk up to the podium at the PBA convention, came when he left the hospital to go to a rehab center. The entire Local 24 membership joined law enforcement officers from locals around the state to give Vadell a standing ovation as he exited into an ambulance.
“ I started crying,” Vadell shared.“ That support is what kept me going, kept me fighting. No matter how low you get, you can always fight back if you have that warrior’ s spirit. You will dig down and find that spirit, but you got to want it bad enough.”
His final statement, however, required no words. The bullet that shattered the right side of his head took away the use of the left side of his body. He has been fighting ever since to regain movement. As Vadell concluded his remarks to the PBA convention delegates, he raised his left arm and flexed it so his bicep muscle bulged.
Here was an amazing show of strength. d
www. njcopsmagazine. com ■ OCTOBER 2017 51