Sgt. Lisa Satcher rides again.
Ten months after she was hospitalized at North Florida Regional Medical Center with the H1N1 virus, Satcher will return to duty as an officer for the Gainesville Police Department on Tuesday morning.
“It’s a great occasion for us that she’s able to come back,” said Tscharna Senn, public information officer for the department. “Her doctors told her that she probably would never even be off of oxygen, much less come back as a full-time cop.”
While in the hospital’s intensive care unit, Satcher was put in an induced coma and placed on a ventilator for nearly three months. She nearly died several times, Senn said.
Her mother, Sheila O’Neill, was also hospitalized after contracting the same virus, but was unable to recover. She died just four doors down from her daughter in ICU.
After she left North Florida Regional Medical Center, Satcher spent time at Select Specialty Hospital on Archer Road and at home.
She returned to work for GPD in mid-April, but not as an officer, because she was not ready to return to the field. Instead, she worked in administration.
It is unknown how Satcher contracted the virus, though she said she may have gotten it while policing the Florida-Tennessee football game or during a visit to a doctor’s office.
After a roll call and a short briefing in the department’s multi-purpose room Monday evening, GPD Capt. Bart Knowles introduced Satcher, who tearfully read a thank-you letter to family members and friends who came out to see her re-introduced into police action.
It was a day she and others thought they may never see.
“There were times I’d . . . say ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it,’” she said.
Satcher said she had mixed emotions putting on her uniform for the first time since September. It reminded her of a time her mother was alive.
But getting back into the squad car is a different story.
“It’s going to be exciting,” she said. “I can’t wait, actually. I can’t wait.”
