Paraplegic testifying in conspiracy case already gives testimony to students

A paraplegic since her unsuccessful back surgery in August 2000, she can’t feel anything from her sternum on down. She uses a wheelchair. But Mel, as she is called by friends, made it clear: "I don’t want people to see me as a victim."

Simon is identified as Client 2 in the indictment. Carlos Pachas is Client 1 in the complex conspiracy case, which has generated 49,000 pages of documents. The trial is set for Oct. 29 before U.S. District Judge Lloyd George.

Gage has hired noted lawyer Alan Dershowitz to represent him and aired television ads defending his integrity.

In the Simon case, the allegation is that two doctors conspired with Gage and Awand to blame the anesthesiologist and protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits.

Simon already has told a grand jury about what happened to her when she had back surgery by Dr. John Thalgott and, after complications, a second surgery by Dr. Mark Kabins. And how she sued the anesthesiologist, Dr. Daniel Burkhead, but not the surgeons. Thalgott is now a cooperating government witness.

Prosecutors will try to prove that Gage defrauded her by hiding from her that she might have been able to sue two other doctors and possibly obtain a larger settlement.

"If there was a conspiracy, I know nothing about it," Simon said. She only knows that since the surgery went awry seven years ago, she has needed a wheelchair to get around.

But there’s another group of folks Mel speaks with frankly about her health issues, the 10th-graders she teaches at Cheyenne High School. At the start of each year, she explains why she’s in a wheelchair, telling students: "It was surgery that went wrong, and I’m paralyzed from the mid-sternum down." She’s open in explaining that she uses a colonoscopy bag, because sometimes it’s noisy.

She makes it personal for her students, so they have a sense of how the spinal cord and brain work together.

"I show them how I drive and warn them if I see them while I’m driving, I can’t wave because I use my hands to steer and brake."

Mel is also a testimonial about what being in a wheelchair doesn’t do. It doesn’t prevent her from having a happy marriage. And a wheelchair didn’t stop her from coaching girls’ softball, which she’s done for eight years, seven in a wheelchair.

"I get respect, not because of the wheelchair, but because of who I am," she said when we first met. "The wheelchair doesn’t define me."

She tells her students: "Part of good character is taking responsibility for your actions and words and not blaming others."

But she also tells them: "If you did something wrong, take the hit."

Her philosophy is direct: "Don’t judge."

While she’s Catholic, and a philosophy of forgiveness is integral, at 48 her philosophy "comes about more or less from living."

Before we spoke in person this past week, Mel wrote and explained some of the concepts she teaches in a class she developed called Life Strategies. One part of the class is about how people handle adversity.

"I told these great students at Cheyenne High School that how you come out of a battle is more important then the winning and losing. How people perceive you, trust you, rely on you, as well as you perceive yourself, is the importance. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people."

At the end of each day, she recommends that you ask: Did I do my best today?

"If you did, then you can go to sleep at night with a clear conscience. If you did not, you have to ask, ‘What can I do to do better.’ I applied this not only to my students, but also to my varsity softball players and, of course, to myself."

Mel Simon’s not looking for someone to blame, which makes her an unusual and remarkable person. If the government is hoping to put a sobbing woman in a wheelchair on the stand to pull at the jury’s heartstrings, that’s not going to happen.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.