Teen-aged Mob Assaults and Leaves of Dead Wall Street Banker and Central Park Jogger

This is a brief story about whom reems and reems of paper have been written: The Central Park Jogger.

On a spring night in 1989, a young, hard working, 28 year old investment banker named Trisha was out jogging near 102nd Street in New York City's Central Park. Also out in the park that evening was a group of teen-agers out "wilding". They were out causing mayhem completely unrestrained in their behavior because of the anonymity and the group mentality a mob. Trisha was accosted by this mob. Completely senseless violence resulted. Trisha was subdued, beaten to an unrecognizable state, raped, sodomized, and left for dead. She lay helplessly unconscious for hours before being discovered by two Latino men who immediately sought the police's and the EMT's help. She was brought to a trauma center. Trisha's condition was so dire, there was doubt she would survive.

Assaults and rapes in a big city such as New York are, of course, numerous and sad to say, commonplace. Trisha's situation became the focus of intense media coverage. Who knows how this happens. Perhaps because she was a highly educated white woman; certainly because of the degree of violence involved; no doubt because of the utter senselessness and callousness of the violence. Despite the intense media coverage and subsequent criminal trials of some of the perpetrators of this crime, Trisha was known in the media stories simply as "The Central Park Jogger".

The injuries to her head were massive. She suffered severe traumatic brain injury. She was in a coma for some time. She suffered from severe cognitive dysfunction and widespread cerebral impairment. She faced a long a complicated recovery. Some health professionals thought she would live a severely limited life of very low quality.

But there was something within Trisha. The was a spark and a drive that pre-existed the brain injury. This spark and this drive were not extinquished by the incredible severity and brutality of the injuries. She struggled. She worked hard at her rehabilitation. She had tremeandous profession, family, and even support from her co-workers. Trisha survived and she even managed to turn a tragic event, which would have defeated so many, into a positive result.

In 2003, Trisha Meili wrote her account in the book I am the Central Park Jogger. She also has inspired many audiences with her example and her speaking about the incident and her recovery. As the book jacket states, her's is "a story of hope and possibility".