Finding words: Shot in head, Lehi ex-officer is regaining his speech

LEHI — For the first few days in the hospital, Lehi Police Capt. Harold Terry couldn't say his wife's name.

"All I could tell Karen, 'That's my woman,' " he said.

And although he knew each of his six children, he couldn't get their names out either. His oldest son? "That's my big boy," he said.

Now, nearly a year later, Terry's vocabulary has increased immensely, thanks to speech therapy three times a week, a devoted wife and family and a supportive extended police family.

"It's been quite a thing," Terry said Monday, while visiting the Lehi Police Department, his second home. "If I'm talking, it's good. If I have to go fast, then that's hard. The bullet made a mess. I was just fine till this went junk."

That "junk" began June 23, 2008, when Terry pulled over Kelly Wark, 34, for what should have been a routine traffic stop. But Wark had a severe mental illness that made her paranoid, especially of police officers, her family told the Deseret News.

She grew more and more agitated throughout Terry's routine questions and eventually pulled a gun from her bag and fired at Terry.

The bullet hit the door frame and two pieces went into the left side of his head, lodging in the cognitive area, his family said.

Wark got out of her car and after trying to shoot at other officers, was shot and killed by backup officers.

Terry was rushed to the hospital where he spent eight days in the intensive care unit and two additional weeks in therapy, relearning how to walk, how to keep his balance and how to say his wife's name.

"It's your world turned upside down," Karen Terry said. "He has to relearn, to start from scratch on everything. But he's always been the person who gave 150 percent with everything he ever did. He's still doing that."

"I could talk forever," Terry said of himself before the shooting. "It's there, I just gotta find it (now)."

He knows exactly what he wants to say, but has a hard time forming the words. He can repeat back words he hears, but unless he can make a new connection in his brain, the words slip away.

He's got Karen's name down. And "Chief," for his friend, Lehi Police Chief Chad Smith. Friday's phrase in speech therapy was "Happy Mother's Day," and he keeps practicing "workers compensation," "questioning" and the names of his many doctors.

"Criminal work, words, for a while I remembered," Terry said. "It's ready to go, it's there. But now I'm retired. Disabled. On disability."

He pauses between each word to make sure he's pronouncing it correctly. "I wasn't able to say that for a while."

When he gets stuck, he turns to his wife or Candie, his daughter. He'll cock his head a bit and stare intently, reaching back to try to pull out the word. Sometimes Karen will prompt him, or just guess at what he wants to say.