Newswatch 16's Ryan Leckey has a preview for tonight's special report airing at 6 p.m. with Trooper Alex Douglass, it is his first sit down personal interview.
Eight months after he was shot and severely wounded outside the Blooming Grove Barracks in Pike County, Trooper Alex Douglass had a lot to say about "that night", his recovery and some big goals for the near future. He invited Newswatch 16 into his home in Lackawanna County where we got to ask the questions so many of us wanted to hear him answer, including how his day unfolded, the day of the shooting on September 12.
"I drove up to the barracks at Blooming Grove for my shift that started at 11 p.m. that night and ran until 7 a.m. in the morning." said Alex.
Trooper Douglass said when he first arrived at the barracks he ran inside to grab a gym bag filled with his running clothes. He planned to use them the next morning when he was going to meet a friend after his shift.
"When I was putting the bag in my car, I heard what actually sounded like fireworks going off. There's actually a gentleman who sells fireworks a little ways down from our station, so it wouldn't be unusual. That's maybe where it was coming from, but it sounded like two loud noises going off at once."
Not knowing exactly what those loud noise were, the nearly 10 year state police veteran walked back toward the barracks to try and find out. As he neared the front entrance he saw another trooper on the ground.
"When I got closer to him, I noticed it was Corporal Dickson."
Many of Trooper Douglass' days are filled with physical therapy. Two hours a day, three days a week at Allied Services in Scranton, Douglass focuses on stretching and weight lifting.
He overcame more than a dozen surgeries to get to this point, which included a severe infection and a full hip replacement on his right side. It was at Allied Services that the 32 year old basically had to learn to walk all over again.
A gym in Luzerne County, Crossfit Blarney Stone in Duryea, also helped the Trooper bounce back. He talked about what the gym meant to him.
"It's family. They put up the PSP strong sign for me when I was in the hospital. It kept me motivated. My goal was to come back here, ultimately," added Alex.
To look back on WNEP's coverage of that fatal night and the events after, click here.
