Paralyzed former Dallas police officer to receive ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"

From the Dallas Morning News:

Dallas police officer Carlton Marshall (pictured) spent almost nine months in the hospital after a bullet pierced his neck and damaged his spinal cord during a drug raid. He suffered a severe stroke and contracted meningitis. He's in a wheelchair now, and he needs cochlear implants to hear.

Nothing can ever change that.

But having a new, wheelchair-accessible home will make life easier, the officer and his wife said Friday after the reality TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came knocking.

The couple were told their one-story brick home near Lancaster, valued on the tax rolls at $44,840, would be razed and replaced by the show over the next week. Their new home will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, complete with a specially designed physical therapy center.

"To see all these people come out and volunteering their time, it's absolutely overwhelming," said Marshall, a former member of the SWAT team. "It restores my faith in humanity."

The soft-spoken police lieutenant talked to reporters and others who had gathered around him after production of the show had ended for the day.

"From the time that this happened to me in October 2007, the community has stepped forward in dramatic ways to help me, and this is just an example of it," he said. "And I can't express how grateful I am."

Marshall's wife, Susan, an Irving homicide detective, thanked local builder Cheldan Homes for leading the construction, but she acknowledged regret that any of this is necessary.

"I'd give it all up for my husband to be back the way he was, but I love him the way he is," she said as the couple's two small children, Joseph and Jessica, milled about.

As is custom, the Extreme Makeover team knocked on the family's door at 10 a.m. and told them the news. The lucky family's identity was a closely guarded secret beforehand.

The design team for the Marshall episode will be led by the show's star, Ty Pennington.

Once the surprise was revealed, hundreds of volunteers chosen from among more than 10,000 applicants converged on the Marshall home with construction workers in what the show calls the "Braveheart March."

Cars and trucks parked along the unmowed lawns nearby, and normally quiet Hash Street became both a television studio and a construction site.

The volunteers will help construction workers by keeping them fed and hydrated under a sweltering sun and by helping move material more quickly to meet the show's seven-day deadline for demolition and reconstruction.

Extreme Makeover chose Marshall after learning about how he was hurt – while leading a SWAT team in an Oak Cliff drug bust Oct. 17, 2007.

The 21-year veteran of the force staged the 6 a.m. raid as his agency assisted federal authorities in serving a warrant accusing a man of money laundering. A woman in the house fired a shot that hit the lieutenant as the team burst in.

Marshall, then 44, might have died if not for the quick action of two doctors on the SWAT team who immediately cut a hole in his neck, allowing him to breathe.

He survived after months in the hospital, but he has lost much of his hearing, and his mobility.

According to a Cheldan Homes official, Marshall's colleagues on the police force pitched his case to the TV show by sending in a video.

When Fort Worth-based Cheldan was first approached by the show to volunteer its expertise, the builder nearly turned it down, given the state of the housing market, said CEO Joey Goss.

"We've cut back and cut back so I didn't feel comfortable asking our team to step up to this because it's just been so tough these last two years," Goss said.

When one of the show's producers told him the remake would be for a "fallen first responder," Goss eventually agreed. He searched the Internet and found that fellow officers had nominated Marshall. That made the decision easier.

"People like us that are healthy, happy and going, don't know what these people go through," the builder said.

For example, Goss said, Marshall has fashioned a stick to pull the chain of a ceiling fan.

The old Marshall home is, to say the least, run-down. According to Cheldan, "snakes have infested the walls, attic, wiring and plumbing. Furthermore, the foundation of the house is sinking, and the septic system backs up on their lawn."

In another week, none of that will be true, the show's producers promise.

Extreme Makeover airs at 7 p.m. Sundays on WFAA-TV (Channel 8). The broadcast date for the episode about the Marshalls has not been determined.