Paralyzed officer: 'Paul's a fighter'
PORTLAND, Ore. - A Portland police officer who was badly injured when a tree fell on him during training is now paralyzed.
Officer Paul Meyer was participating in ATV training at Hayden Island earlier this week when the accident, which appears to have been weather related, happened.
Meyer, a 19-year veteran of the police force, has been in the hospital ever since. On Saturday, the Portland Police Bureau stated that he is paralyzed from the waist down and that his doctors do not believe he will ever regain the use of his legs.
Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson knows Meyer, who is a member of the bureau's Special Emergency Response Team (SERT), a training expert and a married father of two.
"Paul's a fighter," Simpson said. "And if Paul can make it through this and be part of the police community somehow, he'll do it."
The bureau said Meyer's family is grateful for all of the care and support that has been extended to them from not only the law enforcement community, but also from the citizens of Portland.
While Meyer's medical expenses will be covered, friends have set up a fund to help with other expenses, like converting the family's home and vehicles to allow wheelchair access.
If you would like to help out, an account has been established at Advantis Credit Union. Contributions can be made in person or mailed to any of the credit union's branches with the following information:
Officer Paul Meyer Fund
Account # 809390
You can also send cards to:
Portland Police Bureau SERT
Attn: Officer Meyer & Family
449 N.E. Emerson Street
Portland, OR 97211
Paul can go back to his job as Portland Police officer maybe as mentor to new police officers and interns and more. He can do it and he have to look at postive things in new life not negitive. Good luck to you and your family.
With all due respect to the officer and his family, i do have a sincere question. His life altering accident occurred on the job. Worker's compensation will cover all medical, doctor, hospital, rehab, etc bills. Worker's comp will also cover most of his lost income and provide a salary there-after. The PPB may also have an insurance in place as well.It would only be logical that as a police officer, you would also have disability insurance also. My naive question: why has there been an account set up for those who would like to help? Â
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@Tyler Van Pelt Workers Comp and disability are only about 60% of base income. And officers working additional duty like SERT and overtime (a frequent occurrence with things like Occupy and the Bureau being generally understaffed) receive additional pay which will no longer be available to him. Regards to the officer and his family.
 @Tyler Van Pelt You obviously have no idea how much this changes, not only the Officer's life, but his entire family's lives.  All the expenses you listed above are covered by insurance.  But, insurance does not cover the modifications to his home that are necessary, for the family to be able to bring him home.  In order for him to be somewhat independent, modifications need to be made throughout the home, so he will be able to do things for himself.  Insurance does not cover building materials, permits, labor, etc.  And, anyone who has remodeled just one room in their home, knows you can spend thousands of dollars doing just that.
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Not to mention all of the other "little expenses" that pop-up all the time, that will only add stress and anguish to this family, who's world has already been turned upside-down. Â Anything we can do to ease those burdens, well .......... that's what the account is for. Â
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Hope that helps.
@Tyler Van Pelt My questions precisely. Plus the coworkers are most likely assisting. I don't get asking the public to give money.
With all the crap you have to go through to get anything from insurance claims his family would probably starve and be homeless before getting help. This, of course, is just speculation.
A very tragic event. Officer Meyer  loses his mobility and we lose the services of a season police veteran.
Fate has a way of dealing both good and bad cards to all of us over our lifetime. The trick is to take the
bad hand and somehow make it better. I've got a gut feeling that Officer Meyer will prevail in the long term.
Let us all support him as a community. He deserves that and much more!Â
I just find the atv training sorta strange, why the need to have this training, seems a little over the top? Â And why have it on the stormiest day of the year?
 @portlandborn83 I do agree and can only guess they need the ATV's for that huge park in the West Hills along with all bike trails - just a guess...
Wow, I recognize him from a bike crash I witnessed. I was helping the guy who had crashed and he was the first officer to make it to the scene. (I think he just happened to be driving by, I'm not even sure the person calling had even gotten through to 911 yet.) He seemed like he really cared about the poor dude who was bleeding in the street, and came accross as incredibly professional.
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His injury is a loss for the entire community.
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Good luck sir, and thank you for everything you've done for us so far.
In a way, it's too bad he wasn't killed. Â Not from any personal vendetta I have against any police agency, but because the force pays out great if you're killed while on duty, but have a tendency to drop you flat on your butt if you're just injured. Â Poor Damon Coates is a perfect example. Â On the bright side, he's just a paraplegic...hopefully the force will have the decency to shuffle him into a desk job so he can continue being productive and maintain his sense of self-worth and belonging as he recovers from his injuries. Â More than that, hopefully the doctors are wrong and once swelling goes down (if the cord isn't severed, or his spine obliterated in one area) he may regain some feeling and use. Â What a horrible accident.
 @MissLissaJ this is by far the worst comment I've ever read! "it's too bad he wasn't killed"...MissLissaJ, you are HARSH. I, for one, am grateful that he wasn't killed! He is entitled to whatever good life he can (and likely will) carve out of the situation. YOU need to have your head examined for such a crass remark.Â
 @MissLissaJ LOL!!  Let me guess...you are a perpetual optimist.  Am I right?
Oh NO! I was so hoping he would have a full recovery. :(
I cant help but think of all the citizens brutalized or murdered (or both) by the police state over the last year..."Officer hit by falling tree is now paralyzed"... good.
 @FrankCastle ~  Mmmm... wishing for or celebrating bad things happening to other people...  VERY bad karma, Frank...Â
@FrankCastle I know you are just a troll trying to get a reaction from people because you are a pitifully small person (mentaly), and seeing it IS almost Christmas I will give you what you want: you and all that resemble you are morthless waste of oxygen. This guy has a family, lots of friends. A couple mo-rons like you will never be able to chang anything in this world, (unless you quit breathing and let someone more deserving have the Oxygen)
@iamtroglodite Ok, FrankMoron, looks like you won. !0 hours later I read my own post and saw you pissed me off enough to make several typos. Oh, well.
 @FrankCastle The sad thing is, that should something like this happen to you, the very same people that you wish ill of will be the ones who show up to save your sorry butt!  Shame on you, and shame on your parents!
 @FrankCastle Good?  You are quite the prick.  As if an accident that happens to one good cop some how balances the scales of supposed wrongs by others, (wrongs you don't know happened for sure, because often what looks like murder or brutality isn't). Â
 @FrankCastle I shall now apply your logic to your commenting situation:
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Some news site commentors have done bad things, therefore it's good that Frank Castle will die because he is a news site commentor.
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Hooray for pathetic syllogisms and thoroughly mindless comments!.
 @FrankCastle You are truly evil.
He was doing his duty to serve and to protect. wish he and his family well . and I hope he can find it in him to still help the community out. He has a long mantle recovery to go.
Accepting such a fate is not an easy one.
I was sure hoping for some better news re prospects for recovery / mobility, but on the other hand, I believe that anytime someone survives something like this, there is hope... Â Determination and the human spirit can work together to re-build a life, even if that life won't be the same as before. Â Â Those same factors have also worked on occasion to defy medical prognosis... modern physical / occupational therapy methods can work miracles...
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In any event, I echo Shintagirl's sentiments... Officer Meyer has served the community for a long time now... Now there is an opportunity for the community to help him and his family. Â Â
This is completely horrible!! Â I am so sorry for your pain and disability. Â Thank you for serving Portland. Â Please don't let this hold you back. Â Work hard in your physical and occupational therapy. Â The mobility outlook may look grim to the Doctors, but you never know how you can retrain those nerve cells and what function you can get back. Â Even if you don't regain mobility of your lower limbs, there is still so much you can give and that you have to offer to the community and to the world. You may be physically limited, but this doesn't have to keep you from participating in life....it just means you need to work towards coming at life from a different perspective.
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Allow yourself time to grieve and heal, but please remember that you are still able and worthy and don't give up on yourself!!
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Take good care!! Â <3
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So sorry to read this! Best wishes to you!
Paul & family, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Â Thank you for your service to the Community to "protect and serve", and now it's time for those you served, to pay it forward. Â We're here for you and your family!
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"If you would like to help out, an account has been established at Advantis Credit Union. Contributions can be made in person or mailed to any of the credit union's branches with the following information:
Officer Paul Meyer Fund Account # 809390
You can also send cards to:
Portland Police Bureau SERT Attn: Officer Meyer & Family 449 N.E. Emerson Street Portland, OR 97211"
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Aw, that sucks.
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Praying for a miracle.
That is so sad.
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A freak incident and he will be in a wheel chair the rest of his life.
 @RalphCramden This is a time when I hope that OHSU will come up with some other miracle drug like they have done in the past. I do not know enough about stem-cell therapy to make a factual statement, but I thought it helped regenerate nerves faster??