By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer
ATLANTA --Detective Martin Lawing sat in his wheelchair and looked at his car.
The four-door, 1989 Mercedes had been in Atlanta for less than a day -- driven down by colleagues at the Burke County Sheriff's Office -- and Lawing was hoping to conquer it.
Four months ago, getting into a sedan was easy for the 31-year-old former Army Ranger, like brushing his teeth or pulling on a pair of pants.
But that was before Lawing, a SWAT team member, went to work on Dec. 11. Before a mentally ill, 60-year-old woman was charged with shooting him in the neck during a standoff. Before he became a quadriplegic.
Now, Lawing, who used to run daily and had been dubbed "the most in shape" deputy by colleagues, is learning how to live his life from a wheelchair.
He's been told he'll never walk and has been forced to adjust the plans he had for his life. But he's determined to focus on recovering and not spend time thinking about what he's lost.
"Your future is kind of bleak when you've got tubes coming out of you and everyone is saying you'll never walk again or use your hands," he said Friday during his last week of in-patient physical therapy at the Shepherd Center, a spinal cord injury hospital. "But if you stay mad about it all the time, you're not doing anything good for yourself."
He's resolute, also, about getting back to his job as a narcotics officer, even if that means a desk job and working in the courts.
"It's not all undercover work," he said. "There's a lot more to it than that."
Doctors have classified Lawing as "C7 incomplete," which means he can't walk or feel much below his chest but has some limited use of his hands.
For three months Lawing has been meeting daily with therapists -- physical, occupational, psychological and recreational -- to adjust to his new reality.
Wednesday was Lawing's first day living away from the hospital in an off-campus apartment, a landmark that brings him closer to moving back to Morganton with his wife, Leslie, and their 2-year-old daughter, Isabella.
Every week, he's noticed himself getting stronger and doing more than doctors said he should have expected.
"There have been a lot of little instances, like being able to pick up a piece of paper or being able to pick up a potato chip and eat it with my hands," he said. "Little things like that."
The right attitude can go a long way, doctors say.
"The patients who get better ... are the folks who focus on what they can do rather than the folks who focus on what they've lost," said Dr. Brock Bowman, associate medical director of Shepherd's spinal injury program. "Thinking, `Why me, why now?' are totally normal human emotions, but that doesn't maximize getting better like pushing forward and focusing on the future."
Getting stronger
Lawing wakes up about 6 a.m. every day, though he doesn't usually have to be at therapy until after 8. Everything he could do quickly and without help before can now take hours, he said.
Doctors say it takes about 18 months before a body will respond fully to treatment but every patient reacts differently. That makes it difficult to predict what Lawing will be able to do in a year, or 20 years.
"Nobody wants to give you false hope and say you're going to walk again or use your hands," Lawing said. "But I've gotten a lot stronger since I've been here. Every day it's like, `That's something new.' "
Signing his name, using a strap that attaches a pen to his hand, takes a few minutes, while two attempts to climb into the Mercedes last week took about an hour and required the aid of his father, his wife and a therapist.
"This is what it means to get out of the house," his wife said. "He's 6-3 and has got long legs to get in there. That's not easy."
Occupational therapists teach him how to get dressed in bed and show him how to maneuver his legs into his pants. Sometimes it takes a half hour and he gets frustrated.
But he tries to focus on just one part of his therapy at a time rather than worry about all the things he must learn to do differently.
"You just have to take the task in front of you and move on," he said. "If you take it all in, it's just too much."
Long-term goals
Lawing can't tell when Leslie, his wife of eight years and an intensive care unit nurse, places his legs onto the pedals of the electronic stationary bike that stimulates his muscles, he said. But he can feel his father, John, pat his upper back and can feel his mother, Jane, rest her hands on his shoulders.
Over time, he's been able to extend his fingers and his arms have gotten strong enough to partially lift his 175-pound frame. That's more than doctors predicted, he said.
The achievements allowed doctors to reclassify his injury and therapists to set higher goals, including learning how to move himself from bed or a car into his wheelchair without help.
Lawing still has another six weeks or so of daily out-patient therapy at Shepherd but is already setting long-term goals beyond the hospital. He wants to go back to work and has talked with his wife about learning to kayak or start cycling with a hand propelled bicycle.
"He's got such a positive attitude. When you talk about going to (physical therapy), he never says, `I just want to stay in bed,' " said his mother, Jane. "He's so determined and so anxious to do everything he can do."
For now, Lawing's just trying to stay focused on getting better and is taking one thing at a time -- like getting into his car so he can take a ride and see Atlanta and eventually get back home.
An outpouring of support
In the weeks after the shooting, Burke deputies kept vigil at Carolinas Medical Center, where Lawing was before moving to Shepherd. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, still coping with the deaths of two officers months before, paid for a hotel room for Lawing's parents and brought food. "This is what we do," said John Collins, a CMPD officer who also planned a fundraiser. "We take care of each other."
Law enforcement officers and communities across the state have planned several other fundraisers, including 5K runs, barbecue dinners and bluegrass concerts, and Lawing has received hundreds of letters offering encouragement.
It's these little gestures, his father, John, said, that mean the most. "There was a little lady who sent $3 to the Sheriff's Office," he recalled. "It was the last bit of money she had in her pocketbook. She knew nothing about Martin, but she gave him all she had."
Want to help?
Checks and money orders can be sent to the Fraternal Order of Police, c/o Martin Lawing Fund, P.O. Box 1216, Morganton, NC 28680. Write "Martin Lawing Fund" in the memo line.
All content © THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER and may not be republished without permission. Photo by Jeff Willhelm.
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