Reserve Officer Wins an Honor

Charles G. Ochoa, a reserve officer for the La Verne Police Department, was recently honored as one of four 1990 Casa Colina Rehabilitants of the Year.

Ochoa was paralyzed from the chest down after surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. After one month of inpatient rehabilitation, he returned to a full-time job as an engineering supervisor for Hughes Aircraft, as a reserve officer for the La Verne Police Department and as an instructor for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy in Whittier.

Also honored were Henry Lloyd Nearing of Pasadena, who sustained a serious brain injury after a motorcycle accident but returned to his position as a supervising attorney for the IRS after three months of rehabilitation; 2-year-old Vanessa Nicole Sapien of Pomona, who was born with spina bifida and now is four to six months above normal in her cognitive development, and John Lopatkiewicz of Yucaipa, who suffered an aneurysm resulting in brain damage but is now back at his job at Southern Pacific Railroad.