LAPLACE — A lot of people can’t help but smile when they see Jason Triche these days.

It’s not just that the 15-year veteran of the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office is once again wearing his blue uniform.

It’s not just that he is once again roaming the halls of the Sheriff’s Office and the Percy Hebert Building.

Everyone is just glad they can see him at all.

Triche was one of two St. John Parish deputies horribly wounded during a shootout with anti-government individuals in a LaPlace mobile home park on Aug. 16, 2012. Two other deputies died that day.

Triche, who was inspired to go into law enforcement after seeing the bravery displayed by officers in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, fought to survive.

Shot in the back, he dragged himself to a police unit and drove himself to River Parishes Hospital. He was bleeding to death.

“I don’t know how many pints we have in us, but I only had one left,” he said. “I knew I was shot, I just didn’t know where. I didn’t feel anything. I thought it was in the leg or something.

“I was talking over the radio to HQ, giving them my position as I’d pass the streets and I was getting weaker and weaker. I didn’t think I was going to make it. I was starting to feel real cold. My lungs were like they had ice in them. I couldn’t breathe.”

Somehow he managed to get to the hospital and someone dragged him inside.

“That’s the last thing I remember,” he said.

Triche spent the next several months in the hospital, mostly in a coma, isolated in the Intensive Care Units at River Parishes Hospital, then at Our Lady of the Lake.

He remembers the constant pain.

He lost one kidney, which was shredded by the bullet.

His other kidney was irreparably damaged by the massive blood loss.

Triche spent the next four years undergoing more than 30 surgeries to repair the damage, undergoing countless hours of dialysis treatments, battling infections and incredible boredom.

“I watched a lot of cartoons,” he said. “For 56 months, all I did was walk around the house and maybe pull a weed. I couldn’t do anything.”

Then, last year doctors told him the one kidney he had left was failing. He needed a transplant.

In March of last year, he and his family put the word out that a donor was needed.

In June, he met St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Andre Ardeneau, who had decided to become a living organ donor after meeting someone on a cruise who had done it.

“We met at Ruth’s Chris,” Triche said. “He handed me a card and it said he was giving me his kidney. He wanted to surprise me.”

That was nine months ago.

Since then, Triche has been doing everything he could to get back to his normal life — “before the incident,” as he calls it — undergoing physical and mental therapy and taking “tons” of medications.

In December he started taking Jujitsu classes at the same gym his son Peyton, 7, attends.

“My doctors couldn’t believe how rapid my recovery was going,” he said. “It really helps. It helped a lot with my PTSD too. I’m sleeping again.”

In January he and his doctors set a timetable for him to return to work.

On April 19, he did, bringing smiles (and tears) to a department still haunted by that day.

Sgt. Triche, who originally wanted to be a computer engineer, has been assigned to the information technology department at the Sheriff’s Office.

St. John Parish Sheriff Mike Tregre said Triche’s return was good for everyone.

“Seeing Jason back at work makes us all feel more confident about doing our jobs,” Tregre said. “He gives us energy. It’s amazing how he has recovered. It helps make us all feel better. I told him, I may be the Sheriff, but you’re the man.”

Triche said he is thrilled to be back.

“I feel useful again,” he said. “I feel like my old self again. The only limitations I have are those I put on myself.”