Cadet goes the extra mile to graduate

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), May 29, 2001 | by John Diedrich

As an Air Force Academy cadet, Shannon Merlo knows how to take an order. But she wouldn't be graduating from the academy on Wednesday if she hadn't disobeyed orders.

Doctor's orders, specifically.

The ones that said she'd never return to the academy after surviving a horrific car crash her freshman year. The crash on Interstate 25 cost Merlo her spleen and part of her liver and left her with a metal rod in her lower leg, which had been broken in five places. She also needed skin grafts to cover third-degree burns on her leg.

Not only did she come back, Merlo, 21, didn't even miss a year.

She is to graduate Wednesday with her class and will be commissioned as a second lieutenant.

"If you want something badly enough and believe in it, you can make it happen," Merlo said.

She badly wanted to return to the academy after the wreck, which occurred April 30, 1998, as Merlo was finishing up the academy's punishing first year.

She and two seniors were going to Denver to buy supplies for an upcoming trip. Merlo climbed into the back seat and, as always, fastened her seat belt. But then the driver began searching for his wallet. Merlo took off the belt so she could help look. As they started again, she didn't buckle up.

The senior cadet accelerated his 1998 Ford Mustang Cobra up the on-ramp heading north on I-25.

The day was sunny, but it had snowed recently and there was gravel on the road. The car skidded across both lanes of traffic and flipped onto a large, grassy median. Crash investigators concluded the gravel caused the sliding, Merlo said.

As the car flipped, the back window shattered and Merlo was thrown 30 feet in front of the car.

Like a scene from a nightmare, the car rolled after her. Remarkably, it landed atop her - wheels down with Merlo underneath, in the middle of the four tires.

The seat where Merlo had been sitting was crushed. Investigators said she would have been killed or brain damaged had she been belted in.

"I think things happen for a reason," she said. "I have always used a seat belt and have since then, but that one time I wasn't.

"There is a God out there, or someone was watching over me."

After the car landed, Merlo slowly regained consciousness. Her companions, who weren't seriously injured, along with passers-by, lifted the car. The next thing she remembers is the paramedics saying, "We can't wait for a flight. We don't have time."

She was rushed by ambulance to Penrose Hospital, where doctors surveyed her shattered body.

Her leg, pelvis and shoulder were broken in several places. She had severe internal injuries. Third-degree burns from the heat of the car covered much of her leg.

Merlo's father rushed from his home in Westminster, Md., and kept a constant vigil. After extensive surgery, Merlo spent a week in intensive care.

A metal rod, which stretched from knee to ankle, was put in her leg. Skin was grafted from elsewhere on her body for the burns.

The doctors told her she wouldn't return to the academy. But Merlo had other plans.

She took her final exams in the hospital, encouraged by the dozens of cards and flower bouquets she received, many from people in the Air Force she had never met but who had heard of the crash.

During the last week of her month in the hospital, she began getting on her feet. At first, she simply stood, then took a few steps and finally crossed the room.

"I had no muscle left," she said. "It was very slow."

She flew back to Maryland where she undertook demanding outpatient treatment. All the while, her father cared for her.

"It's humbling when you are 18 and your dad is filling the tub and changing your dressings," she said. "At the academy, you like to be strong, independent, confident and self-assured."

While she worked back, her father arranged for her return to the academy. The original plan was a medical turn-back, meaning she would take a year off. But Merlo returned to Colorado Springs in August, less than four months after the crash. It was probably too early, she admitted.

She had tricks to deal with pain and swelling. She left for everything earlier than other cadets and often slipped into a bathroom to gather herself before class. Walking up and down the stairs painfully swelled her leg, but she managed.

By the time academy officials realized she was supposed to be held back, Merlo had been attending classes and doing well. They let her stay. But there were challenges. When she couldn't do the academy- required pull-ups because of her shoulder, an Air Force doctor said, "It's time you look for another college."

Merlo worked on her upper body strength and soon returned to max out the pull-ups and push-ups.

Today, she carries no visible sign of the crash, except that she tends to get sick easier and has to watch sun exposure on her burns. But she can run and do all the other physically challenging tasks demanded at the academy.

Merlo is headed for a career as an agent in the Office of Special Investigations, the criminal investigative arm of the Air Force. But first, graduation beckons.