He continued.
“I think it’s a lot of mind over matter. If there’s something you want to do, you’ll do it.”
Some didn’t think Veto would make it back to the job, let alone in a full capacity on the road.
Wiessinger was one of those self-proclaimed “naysayers.”
“Just being there and seeing the trauma that his body went through, what happened, and that it was a miracle that he was alive,” he said was enough to make him believe Veto wouldn’t return. “Certainly what he went through and the hazards we face every day, not many would come back.”
Wiessinger said if anyone were able to come back, it would be Dale with his passion for the job.
“He fought through an extremely long and painful road to recovery through his determination to professional law enforcement and to serve the people he’s always served,” he said. “Dale is and always will be committed to professional law enforcement; there’s no other thing that he’d rather do.”
Veto spent his first day back sitting behind a desk, doing various assignments and helping where he could at the Northeast Precinct.
For 90 days, he sat at the Northeast Precinct. His contract required him to take a mandatory two-week vacation before he spent another 90 days at the Sheriff’s Department’s headquarters in downtown Madison.
Doctors and the department gave Veto medical clearance to return to full duty in late June, which required him to pass a battery of physical tests.
The approval process put Veto’s legs to the test. They made him run, pull a weighted dummy, sidestep through an agility course, climb ladders and jump over handrails and off loading docks.
Veto said the three- or four-hour test was more intensive than when he first joined the department in 1991, adding that new recruits have to pass a stress test, rather than a physical gauntlet such as what he went through.
With the clearance behind him, Veto spent two weeks riding with the deputy, temporarily filling his contractual policing position with the towns of Westport, Burke and Bristol.
The morning of July 5, Veto slipped behind the wheel for the first time on his own since the 2008 incident.
“I wasn’t nervous about doing my job,” he said. “I was more nervous and apprehensive about doing things the right way.”
On the job in September, with a white truck pulled over on the side of Hwy. 113, Veto walked up to the passenger side to talk to the driver about his alleged speeding violation.
A bystander wouldn’t be able to notice Veto’s injuries, aside from the very slightest of limps as he walks to and from stopped vehicles.
“The frustrating part is how good is it going to get?” he asked rhetorically of his left leg. “I still think it will get better.”
Veto’s doctors told him he wouldn’t know how good his legs, particularly his left leg which has lasting nerve and muscle damage, would be for at least five years after the surgery, he said.
He feels his leg is back to about 75 percent of what it was capable of doing before being struck, and it improves day by day.
“I can see from day one through now that it still continues to get better,” he said. “I’ve just had to learn to work with and adapt to it.”
Off the job, Veto has noticed considerable improvement in his legs’ functions.
The biggest reason Veto fought to regain the strength in his legs was his daughter. She was 7 at the time of the accident and was just becoming active in sports and other outdoor activities.
“There was a lot of wanting to be with her, do stuff with her,” he said with tears spilling down his face. “Sports, playing catch, riding bike – all the things you do with your child.”
Veto recalled the first time he tried to play catch with her since his injuries. She would throw the ball, and it wouldn’t come to him, he said, describing how the ball would fly over his head or off to the side.
“She’d say dad jump; dad get it,” he remembered.
At the time, Veto could have fallen if he attempted to jump for the ball.
“Now it’s as close to normal as can be,” he said. “At least now I can jump and run and be able to play with her.”
And she has dad on the run, having a volleyball tournament over the weekend, along with softball practice and bowling to start soon.
Veto, his daughter and his wife, spent their summer traveling, something the family wasn’t able to do until recently.
The Vetos traveled to visit friends in Ft. Collins, Colo., made their first trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and spent a week with their extended family in St. Germain.
“The last couple of years I couldn’t do things like I wanted,” he said. “But this year we were able to get out and move around and do more family type stuff that I enjoy doing.”
And on that first autumn morning, the sun came out for Veto as he drove the country roads of Northern Dane County.
“It’s pretty normal being in the car,” he said as he once again checked the speeds of oncoming traffic. “It’s just trying to get the rust off.”
Veto swung his car into the Westport Town Hall’s parking lot once again and paused a moment.
“My doctor that did the surgery, I don’t think she thought I would walk very much any more, mainly that I would return to work,” he said. “I even think there were some coworkers that thought I probably wouldn’t return to work. Those that know me personally know that I’m not one to give up. I just had to prove them wrong, I guess.”