2018 NJSPBA
Mini-Convention
Another chapter in the feel-good story
Just when you think you’ve seen it all from Josh Vadell, it does get better
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Josh, right, with Thomas McCabe.
Buenas dias, mis amigos. Cómo estás?
Josh Vadell appeared confused, mistakenly speaking Spanish to
begin his address to the Mini Convention. Or so he wanted PBA
members to think. He then broke out into laughter, another sign
that he continues to feel good, and it was a gesture that truly uplift-
ed members.
Every time Vadell comes to a PBA event, it’s a feel-good moment.
The Atlantic City Local 24 now-retired officer appeared at the con-
vention to inspire members with his continued remarkable recov-
ery from the gunshot that shattered part of his skull on Sept. 3, 2016,
when responding to a call in a parking lot near Caesars.
On March 6, Vadell reprised the off-the-cuff, at times off-color
speech he made when the PBA invited him and his family to the
convention in the Bahamas this past September. At Atlantis six
months ago, Vadell still needed a wheelchair to get around. The
wheelchair is now gone. He is walking without any help. He walked
onto the ice to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff before the
PBA Hockey Team’s game against Philadelphia Police on March 7.
Vadell provided details of the foundation he and his even more
remarkable wife, Laura, have started, which gained financial sup-
port through a donation from the State PBA and other organiza-
tions. The hockey team and Local 24 also sold T-shirts to raise addi-
tional funds for the foundation.
Like Josh, the feel-good story of Josh Vadell keeps getting better.
50
NEW JERSEY COPS
■ MARCH 2018
NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan, Executive Vice President Marc Kovar
and Recording Secretary Meg Hammond lead the ovation for Josh Vadell.
When introducing Vadell, PBA President Pat Colligan announced
that Vadell and his partner, Thomas McCabe, will be receiving Top
Cops awards from the National Association of Police Organizations
(NAPO) during Police Week 2018 in Washington, D.C., in May.
“Every time I see Josh, he gets better and better,” Colligan contin-
ued with a big smile. “So put your seat belts on and get ready for an
incredible story of survival.”
After dropping the Spanish salutation, Vadell mused how he
wanted everybody to get a sense of what it’s like to have a traumatic
brain injury. He also quipped how he was pleased that Father John
McCrone was not present at the Mini, as he had been in the Ba-
hamas, to hear Vadell’s remarks that made a few references to his
below-the-belt area.
What proved to be most illuminating in Vadell’s latest soliloquy is
how he continues to recall more and more details from the night of
Sept. 3, 2016. For this address, he wowed the crowd with the specif-
ics of what had transpired prior to the call coming in.
“We were doing everything but police work in the half-hour be-
fore I got shot,” he related. “We were with another two-man unit on
a dead-end road having a doughnut contest with our patrol cars. I
ended up winning and Tommy had to drive the rest of the night.”
Vadell can now recall details like passing Ruth’s Chris Steak House
and Ruby Tuesday, turning down Arkansas Avenue and coming up
on the parking lot. He can pinpoint precisely where the round that
hit him came from. And when.
He will never forget the feeling of lying in the backseat of that pa-
trol car with McCabe sitting on him to apply pressure to the wound
that was bleeding out, feeling the car speeding and wondering,
“Who is driving the car?”
And Vadell will never forget how he felt when he was wheeled into
the ER and how that has made all the difference.
“I was angry,” he explained. “I’m a sore loser, and I was going to
fight, not be a headline. The anger got me through this.”
Anger has given way to gratitude. Nothing is more gratifying than
having Laura with him, as she was for this address, and daughters
Adrianna, Vienna and Lucy, who was delivered shortly after the in-
cident, at home to see every day. Nothing is more rewarding than
being able to deflect the series of standing ovations he received at
the Mini by asking members to rise one more time to give it up for
McCabe, the brother who saved his life.
Vadell can now stand and be part of that ovation. And that makes
everybody feel good. d