Michael Cafferty, dead at 49, rebuilt his life after car crash at 18 left him paralyzed

Michael Cafferty in December 2003, when he appeared at a Cook County Board meeting as an attorney with the county Office of the Public Guardian. At right: his assistant Lily Berman. | Richard A. Chapman / Sun-Times

He went to law school, got married, had kids, worked at the Cook County public guardian’s office to help others — and survived deadly 2003 county administration building fire.

Mike Cafferty was a kid from the Back of the Yards who knew how to take care of himself.

He worked as a lifeguard and did two-mile Lake Michigan swims. He could throw a football, breakdance or clock somebody with a punch.

At 18, a car crash left him paralyzed below the neck. After that, he’d have dreams about swimming, running and throwing a football. Then, he’d wake up.

“I am shocked that I can’t move,” he wrote in his autobiography “Driven.” “And tears hit the pillow every paralyzed night.”

Mr. Cafferty spent two years in a rehabilitation facility. He went on to study psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and went on to law school at DePaul University.

“I just paid attention the first few days of class to the people who were writing the most notes,” he said in an interview in 2000 with the Chicago Sun-Times.

He’d borrow their notes and study them by turning pages with a mouth stick.

When he graduated from law school, his classmates gave him a standing ovation.

Through determination, a breath-activated wheelchair and speech-recognition software to write legal documents, he worked for nearly 20 years for the Cook County public guardian’s office, helping to protect vulnerable people and their estates from scammers.

Cook County Circuit Judge Patrick T. Murphy, a former public guardian, remembers what Mr. Cafferty said during his job interview: “I don’t want you to hire me because I’m quadriplegic. I want you to hire me because I’m smart, and I’m tough.”

“Mike was a very good lawyer and a tough advocate and a nice guy,” Murphy said.

Karen Kelleher was attracted to him by a dating ad he placed on Craigslist.

“He said he knew what was important in life,” she said, “and he wanted to get married and have kids one day and to be happy.”

As they emailed back and forth, he told her he had “some paralysis” from an accident.

Their first date was at a Starbucks near his West Loop home. When she walked in, “He’d already made friends with the baristas,” she said.

He was funny and unpretentious. “He’d go down for a [medical] test with the transporter,” his wife said, “and they’d come back, he’d be best friends with the guy.”

They were married in 2009 and had two children, Rose, 5, and Mike, now almost 3.

Yvonne O’Connor

“He loved it when they climbed up on him,” his wife said.

She said that when the kids were learning to walk, they used his wheelchair for balance. “Rose realized she could hold on to daddy’s feet. Mike would move his chair backward, and she’d take a step forward. They both learned how to climb up on his chair to get up to him.”

He taught the kids their A-B-Cs and 1-2-3s and the words to “Rapper’s Delight.”

Provided photo

On a trip to Ireland, the homeland of his parents Anne and Michael Cafferty, he visited the pubs and belted out a favorite tune, “The Black Velvet Band.”

He was a fan of Walter Payton, Michael Jordan and Portillo’s Italian beef. He’d sing the male part in the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” while his sister Colleen sang the female chorus.

And he never turned down a chicken wing. “He could put the whole thing in his mouth” and get every last scrap, his wife said.

In 2003, he escaped a fire that killed six other county workers at the Cook County Administration Building, 69 W. Washington St. He ignored advice given at fire drills — to stay put — and joined co-workers who used an elevator to escape.

After all that he survived and accomplished, it seemed especially cruel that he was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer last June.

For years, he’d been working on an autobiography. “That became his main focus,” Karen Cafferty said. It was published Jan. 16, two days before he died at his Chicago home.

“He always had that will to live, even till the last day,” said his aunt Eileen McLaughlin.

In addition to his wife and his sister Colleen, he is survived by another sister, Breedge Mills. Services have been held.

“All he worried about was his wife and children,” said the Rev. Britto Berchmans, who married the Caffertys and said the funeral Mass.

Linda Schirling

Mr. Cafferty had made a request of his closest friends.

“He didn’t want us to just be there for the special occasions,” said Bill Condon, Rose’s godfather. “He wanted us to be there for the Mondays-through-Fridays. Check in with the kids and see how school went. Teach them how to play catch.”

Provided photo

Danardo Triplett, his oldest friend, said Mr. Cafferty told him: “ ‘Love my children. Let them know I did everything I could to stay alive.’ ”

Jean Kelleher.