Hero’s joyous walk home AFGHAN WAR | Cop declared paralyzed steps into Midway
For a few precious moments Friday, the single-minded, everyone-for-themselves rush at Midway Airport seemed to stop to make way for one man.
Strangers waiting in the terminal got up out of their seats. They applauded and whistled, as U.S. Army Master Sgt. Pedro Medina walked stiffly along the concourse.
They were astonishing steps for a man whose neck, pelvis and foot were crushed when a hangar collapsed on him during a mortar attack in Afghanistan in May 2009. Medina, an Army reservist and a Chicago cop, wasn’t supposed to walk again.
He did just that Friday, even leaving his cane behind at the veterans hospital in Tampa, Fla., where he is learning to use his limbs again.
“It’s great to be back home,” said a smiling Medina, surrounded by family, fellow reservists, Chicago Police officers and the leather-clad Patriot Guard Riders, a motorcycle-riding veterans appreciation group.