Personal Experience: Submitted 3/5/2004

Petition for Police Training

I am 42 and I have epilepsy and minor brain damage since I was 2 1/2 years old. It is outragous that law enforcement don't have the training to understand what a seizure is and how to treat a person that's having a seizure. Let me tell you what happend to me a few weeks ago . . . my wife, Nancy Lee, who has cerebral palsy and who I don't know what i would do without, is in the division of developmental disabilities. Her worker came over to our home to try and talk to her. I was in the bedroom and I heard the worker say something that upset me. I asked her to leave and she refused and picked up her cell phone and then about five minutes later the police showed up.

My wife was upset and I tried to calm her down and the other woman that was sitting next to my wife told me to leave Nancy alone. The police walked in and they took my wife to the bedroom and shut the door. The one cop asked me for my house keys when I felt a seizure comming on.

They told me I threw the keys across the room hitting the entertainment center and they tackled me to the floor and pushed my face into the rug and my wife told me she heard me yelling "Lee, Lee, tell them I didn't do it," over and over and then she told me I started saying "Mommy, Mommy, I'm having a seizure, I'm having a seizure." When I came out of the seizure, I found myself handcuffed and the cop that was in front of me had toilet paper around his finger and he informed me that I bit him.

I have complex partial seizures and I have no memory of what happens during a seizure. They put me in the county corrections center for ten days and I was scared-it was my first time I was ever in jail and I was deprived of my meds. My Dilantin level was low and they didn't give me my Neroutin either. Now I have to go to court to face charges for obstruction of justice, resisting arrest, and assult on a police officer.

My wife and I want to start a pettion to make the police take the training so this doesn't happen to another couple or person with epilepsy or other related conditions. If anyone wants to share their stories or make friends feel free to email us at nancyandjohn2000@comcast.net.

-Salvatore & Nancy Lee Mollica