Deputy on the mend

EPHRATA - Earl Romig says he's ready to return to work.

The Grant County Sheriff's Deputy survived a life-changing hunting injury Jan. 10.

Before work, comes recovery.

He spends his days resting, fighting pain, undergoing physical therapy and playing Nintendo video games. Each day a physical therapist tries to stir his muscles to speed Romig's recovery.

Doctors aren't sure when he'll walk again or return to work. He uses a walker because of nerve damage in his right leg. The nerves will awaken when they're ready.

When he was shot in the back, the bullet from the 30-06 hunting rifle exited out his stomach and caused additional internal injuries.

"I miss work," Earl said. "I miss the guys that I work with and the excitement of my job."

His co-workers recently donated their sick leave to Earl, which should last until sometime in July.

He returned home on Feb. 9 after nearly a month at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. It's where he married his fiance/ Tami Canfield, 20, who has stayed at his side since the shooting.

Now 32 pounds lighter, he wears a back brace after four of his vertebrae were fused. He hefts five-pound dumbbells during physical therapy instead of the 70-pound weights he used during his pre-injury daily workouts.

Tami rattled off the numbers of his fused vertebrae - Lumbar 3, 4, 5 and Sacral 1, saying the experience "taught me a little bit."

He's given a dose of antibiotics every six hours to fight off an infection. Family members help with the doses when Tami needs to sleep.

On Friday, Earl was working on a musical video slide show of his time at Harborview to the song "I'm a Survivor." The slide show was played at a benefit in his honor later Friday where more than 600 people attended and donated about $60,000.

The hunting trip that left him homebound in a back brace started out uneventful.

Earl walked into an orchard near Soap Lake where he'd been to "hundreds of time before" to hunt coyotes, he said while retelling his version of what happened.

He saw a man he identified as Robbie Joe Marcher step out of a truck with a rifle.

"We were pretty close, within a hundred yards, he points his rifle at me and then I see that, and turn to my right and go through the trees," Earl said.

Wearing digital camouflage and a white sweatshirt with a blue cross, Earl walked to a nearby field about 200 yards or more and started calling coyotes for about a half an hour. No coyotes responded, so he decided to start for home.

"So, I started walking about 40 to 60 yards, all of the sudden I heard this buzzing sound and immediately afterwards, I felt excruciating pain and felt this gunshot," he said.

"I fell to the ground, immediately I started screaming, 'He shot me, he shot me,'" Earl said. "I flashed back to being in the orchard and that maybe this guy was trying to kill me and I just walked into something."

"He was walking off, looking back at me while I was screaming," he said.

Earl said he waited about five minutes and shot three rounds as a distress signal.

"I crawled about 20 yards of so, and I did everything I could to try and crawl towards my car," he said. "Everything I tried wasn't working, but it was working, but not fast enough for me."

Another man in the area, Don Thill of Ephrata, heard his gunshots and cries for help. Thill found Earl, called 911 and handed him the phone.

Earl said his good-byes to Tami over the phone and decided to fight for his life.

His best friend and fellow deputy Beau Lamens was working that night. Lamens and Earl's brother-in-law Dustin Canfield arrived on the scene.

"It was pretty comforting" Earl said.

Another friend of Earl's, Ephrata Fire Chief Jeremy Burns, also showed up to help.

"He asked me what I needed and I told him. I told him I needed to get off this snow, I needed an ambulance bad and I didn't have time to sit there and wait to be backboarded."

Lamens, Canfield and another deputy picked up Earl and carried him to an awaiting vehicle.

"They didn't even fall down, I couldn't believe they didn't fall because they were running so fast through the deep snow," Earl said.

Earl said Friday he didn't know if he met Marcher professionally before because he deals with thousands of people.

"Unless it's something significant, you don't remember it," Earl said.

Marcher, 38, of Moses Lake, pleaded not guilty to charges of third-degree assault, failing to summon assistance and unlawful possession of a firearm. He told authorities he thought he shot at a coyote. He's been released on bail.