A Day In The Life Of A Cat

Sunday night I recorded Dateline. Katie Couric interviewed the woman who, for the last 14 years, has been known to the public only as "The Central Park Jogger". Her true identity has been kept secret to protect her privacy. Last night she stepped forward.

Background
On April 19th 1989, she went jogging after work to release the days tension. Many people have never understood why a woman would choose to jog at 9pm alone in Central Park. When asked that question, she said:

“I remember running by myself, relishing the solitude and a feeling of ownership — it was my park,” she says. “I belonged in the city spread out before me — it was my city. I had conquered challenges at work and made my body strong. I could run and run and nothing and no one could harm me.”

She honestly didn't think she was in very much danger. Having run the same path 5 nights a week for a long time, she'd never encountered a problem. But on that night as she crossed into the only patch on the jogging path that ever worried her, she was attacked and dragged the length of a football field into a dark isolated area. A gang of boys brutally beat her with stones and sexually assaulted her. She was tied up and left for dead in a praying position. By sheer luck, two policemen in the area were alerted by two teens that there was a person tied up in the woods. When they found her, she was so badly beaten that she just looked like a bloody pulp of a person. Having lost 75% of her blood, she wasn't expected to live. Had she been found any later, she would have bled to death there in the woods. Her doctor was quoted as saying:

“She nearly bled out through sharply inflicted lacerations in her scalp,” says Dr. Robert Kurtz of the Surgical Intensive Care Unite at Metropolitan Hospital. “This was the blood that was on the ground. It was on her clothing. It was on the stretcher when she came in the hospital. I think she bled about as much as you can bleed and still be alive.”

With no ID on her, police had to wait for someone to call in looking for her. It didn't take very long to find out who she was. She worked as an investment banker and everyone she worked with knew she jogged. When the story that an unidentified woman had been found in Central Park the previous evening, and she didn't show up for work, her colleagues feared it was her. Finally one of the Senior colleague at the firm called the police and they asked him if she wore a ring. He didn't know but paged her secretary and asked her.

"Yes she has a ring that’s shaped like a little piece of rope tied in a knot." the secretary told him.

That ring identified her. Her family was called and they were told her chances of pulling thru were unlikely. If she did make it, she'd be a vegetable because her brain injury was so severe. But she did make it, and she's not a vegetable. She's 42 now and her name is Trisha Meili. Her story is amazing....she came back and made it when the odds were against her. To look at her you'd never know her face and head had been crushed or that there is a large dent on the side of her head under her hair where they took a piece of her skull to reconstruct her cheek bone.

Today she feels very blessed. She has some trouble with balance now and then and her memory isn't like it once was, but if that's as bad as it gets for her, I'd say she's more than lucky. There must have been a higher power looking after her because to cheat death like that is truly amazing.

Be careful everyone. We're not as safe as we think. If you run, jog or walk - take ID with you and make sure someone knows the route you take. Adults forget the rules because we're....well....adults and somehow that makes us feel more immune to things. But just think about what you would tell a kid, then follow those rules. Better to be safe than sorry.