By Hailey Heinz
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE — No one, including the surgeons working on her, expected Carol Oleksak to survive after she was shot in the head and shoulder in 2003.
Most of her left ear was shattered, and the plastic surgeon wasn’t going to bother stitching it back up. The brain surgeon insisted.
“He said, ‘Put it back on, at least for the funeral,’ ” Oleksak said.
She can laugh about it now, after a miraculous recovery that has allowed her not only to survive, but to become an advocate for people with mental illness or brain injuries. Oleksak also returned to her job at the Albuquerque Police Department, where she will finish a 20-year career with her retirement this spring.
Oleksak, an APD sergeant who started there in 1989, was shot by a mentally ill homeless man in July 2003. The shooter was Duc Mihn Pham, who police now believe suffered an injury to his frontal lobe when he was a child.
Pham was fatally shot by officers the night Oleksak was almost killed. He had been arrested many times but was released because there was no proof he was dangerous.
There are still bullet fragments in Oleksak’s brain. She struggled with relearning English after her injury, and she still sometimes forgets names and phrases or loses her train of thought. But she has her independence and hops nimbly over fences at her ranch, talking easily about the years since the shooting, the things that have changed and the things that haven’t.
“Parts of my brain were left on the street,” she said.
As Oleksak prepares to retire, she also prepares for the annual walk next month with the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Oleksak was recently a guest speaker for a NAMI event, and, since the shooting, she has participated in the group’s annual walks to raise money and awareness of mental illness. She also helped with NAMI’s unsuccessful attempts to lobby for Kendra’s Law, which would mandate treatment for mentally ill people found to be a danger to themselves and others.
Forgiveness
Albuquerque passed a Kendra’s Law, which has since been struck down by the state Court of Appeals, after paranoid schizophrenic John Hyde went on a shooting spree in 2005. Hyde killed five people, including two police officers.
One of those officers, Mike King, was the first officer Oleksak met when she moved to Albuquerque.
Despite the loss of her friend and her own devastating injuries, Oleksak is not resentful of Pham or Hyde.
Carol Brusca, the vice president of Albuquerque’s NAMI chapter, said she is amazed by Oleksak’s ability to forgive.
“Some people might turn to become bitter,” Brusca said. “She’s just completely understanding and compassionate.”
Oleksak’s understanding comes from working with mentally ill residents and transients many years before she was injured.
“I always wanted to work in the worst part of town,” she said.
She spent most of her career working in the South Valley and had recently transferred to the Central corridor near the University of New Mexico when she was shot in a Walgreens parking lot at the intersection where Central, Girard and Monte Vista SE converge.
Although she did not know Pham, she had arrested many people like him: mentally ill transients who were arrested over and over, only to be released after they were found incompetent but not dangerous.
Many of those people still know her. She said she sometimes sees transients she used to frequently arrest, and they run up and hug her and ask how she’s doing.
They need help
Four homicides in Bernalillo County this year have been linked to mental illness. Advocates say the mental health system has been stretched too thin, making it hard for patients to get help even when they seek it.
Kendra’s Law was struck down after a court ruled that the ordinance was pre-empted by state law that requires consent from either the patient or a treatment guardian before psychotropic medication can be administered.
Oleksak said the state needs some version of the law, tailored specifically to New Mexico’s needs and dealing only with people who are found to be a danger to themselves or others.
In the years since her injury, Oleksak returned to APD, although she no longer wears a uniform or carries a gun. She has worked in several departments and now works for the pawnshop detail.
When she retires, Oleksak looks forward to spending more time on her Salad Fork Ranch along U.S. 550 between Zia Pueblo and San Ysidro. She has big plans that include building a new barn, an aviary for her peacocks and chickens, and maybe even a foray into raising camels. She says there’s good money in it.
Oleksak even takes a little bit of the ranch with her to NAMI walks, usually one of the Anatolian shepherds that she breeds and sells. But this year, she’s changing it up and taking Thunderation, a miniature horse. Oleksak said she will stay involved with NAMI and organizations like it until mentally ill people get the help they need.
“It’s not that they’re criminal,” she said. “They need to have some sort of help.”
Copyright 2009 Albuquerque Journal