QUEENS — The rookie police officer who suffered a skull fracture after he was hit in the head with a hatchet has returned to work at his Jamaica precinct this week after more than a year of rehabilitation.
Officer Kenneth Healey, 25, who underwent two skull reconstruction surgeries and continues to recuperate after the Oct. 2014 attack, began desk duty this week.
"It is great to be back," Healey told NBC 4 New York Wednesday.
His goal is to at some point return to work at full duty, Deputy Inspector John Cappelmann, commanding officer of the 103rd Precinct said at a community meeting in October.
Healey was among four rookie officers posing for a photo on Jamaica Avenue near 162nd Street on Oct. 23, 2014, when Zale Thompson, 32, who police said was inspired by radical Islamic groups, attacked them with an 18-and-a-half-inch metal hatchet.
He hit Healey in the head and injured another officer, Joseph Meeker, 26, in the right arm, before the two other officers opened fire, killing Thompson.
Healey had his first surgery at Jamaica Hospital on the day of the attack and in January, he underwent the second procedure at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, Long Island.
Earlier this year, the four officers attacked by Thompson received the Top Cops Awards presented annually by the National Association of Police Organizations during a ceremony with Vice President Joe Biden in Washington D.C.
Healey, who lives in Oceanside, Long Island, comes from a family of police officers. His younger brother, John, graduated from the New York Police Academy in June and was assigned to the 101st Precinct in Far Rockaway. Their father, James, is a Nassau County police detective.
