police officer nearly killed at domestic denied benefits

October 14, 2001 began as an ordinary shift for Floyd County Police Officer Pat Sleffel, responding to a domestic disturbance call that night. The suspect had fled into the woods and hid after severely beating his wife. Sleffel waited patiently then spotted the man running away in the dark field. With no backup for thirty minutes, he wrestled the man to the ground and felt a strong, sharp pain in his chest and left arm. His paramedic training told him he was having a heart attack and then suddenly the suspect grabbed his Glock 40 caliber handgun. The gun was now pointing at him. The officer’s life flashed before him. His fingers finally caught hold of the barrel and he slid it back preventing the gun from firing. The chest pain was getting worse by the second as Sleffel gained control of this situation and handcuffed the suspect.

Denied a Worker’s Compensation claim for these injuries suffered on duty, Sleffel’s nightmare was just beginning. A graduate of several police academies and EMT training with top placement and honors, “Doc” received no critical incident debriefing or support and was retired from his job by his police department. Medical bills soon mounted to over $200,000 forcing him to lose his car and his house, his credit ruined. Unable to sleep and suffering from recurring flashbacks, panic attacks, irritability and thoughts of suicide, all signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Pat Sleffel had put his life on the line. Now unable to work, Pat’s family suffered as well, his wife moving to Ohio for employment there and to care for their children.

Pat Sleffel moved to Florida to stay with friends and borrows a car to make the twelve hour monthly drive to Georgia to see his doctor. He avoids passing near Floyd County, the haunting, intrusive memories of that fateful night too much to bear.

“I almost died on the job, doing what I enjoyed most, willing to sacrifice all that I am for a stranger. Now I find myself in a battle for what is right with my former employers, Floyd County Police Department. It seems as if nearly dying in the line of duty does not qualify for compensation or recognition.”

Doc can be contacted at http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/doc/docshp.html. In his ongoing struggle for justice, he welcomes your thoughts and comments.

This sort of behavior by local gubmits is all to common. In wealthy Fairfax County, Va an EMT developed HIV after trying to provide aid to a severely cut HIV positive drunk who in the course of the treatment reanimated and sliced the EMT with a piece of glass giving an infection path to the EMT. When he developed HIV the county retired him and denied a disability claim argueing among other things with a completely straight facethat the infection could have come from queer sex or drug use. The EMT was a deacon in an evangelical congregation and a involved in a lot of youth activities. The county attorney's comments were widely reported in the Fairfax Jornal papers. This led to a lot of suspicion being cast on this fellow and he became a near pariah. (It is amazing how credulous many people, even today, are if some government hack says or infers something about a person or program.) Eventually after lenghty litigation the county offered a good sized lump sum payment and agreed to cover this fellows medical costs. There never was any retraction of the smears and the EMT moved to Florida at least in part to get awy from being regarded as a gay debachee.

Nice... In Tacoma, we just had our former assistant chief, who is embroiled in a scandal involving the former chief killing his wife then himself, get awarded 65,000 per year in disability for a back injury that she all of a sudden discovered AFTER she was placed on administrative leave and is being investigated. What a fair system.

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