This one afternoon, we were dispatched to a hit and run collision in which the victim had followed the suspect into an alley. When we arrived I spoke to the victim first, who told me the suspect had collided into her and then fled the scene into the alley after a brief chase. I then spoke with the suspect, but after about five seconds I could tell she suffered from some serious mental and emotional problems. She also had been drinking. The fact that she was drinking didn’t make this call unusual. What made it unusual was the suspect was missing an arm and a leg. The missing limbs were on opposite sides of the body and she was in a wheelchair with a prosthetic arm. Her clothes were disheveled and dirty looking.

After hearing the story about how the collision occurred, I knew a DUI investigation had to be done on the one arm, one leg, mentally ill person in a wheelchair. That fell upon the motor officer, who was my follow up. This was definitely a first for both of us.

This suspect wanted nothing to do with us and she was very mean. I don’t remember what she told us, but she spewed venom like no other. Insult after insult made me laugh. Her foul mouth told me things about my mom I never heard of before. I wished I had video of her because she had a total meltdown right there in the alley. At one point she said, “I’m leaving.” She turned her wheelchair around and started rolling away.

We looked on in disbelief as she started rolling away with one leg on the ground as she used her arm to propel herself in the chair. The motor officer told her to stop, but she ignored him like a four year who didn’t get their way. The officer started walking after her as he told her to stop again, but she tried to go faster. He started to jog after her as he went in wheelchair pursuit. This call was getting crazier by the second.

When he caught up to her, he grabbed the wheelchair handles and turned her around. He then pushed the wheelchair back to where we were trying talk with her. She had a look of defeat, and utter disgust for us. The officer pulled out his handcuffs and attached them to the wheelchair and the fence she was next to.

Now she was stuck and really upset. After the first meltdown I didn’t think it was possible for her to get any madder, but she did. She was so upset she took off her arm and threw it at us. Yes, you read that right. She threw her fake arm at us! It’s not every day a drunk woman throws her fake arm at you. It wasn’t a very good throw, but the arm did fly through the air and came to a skidding stop a few feet away from me.

She then got out of her wheelchair and threw herself onto the ground as she had another tantrum. She went through her bag and started throwing stuff at us. It was a large bag and I wasn’t sure if she had a leg in there to throw at me also. It was so crazy I wanted to look around to see if there was camera filming us for a TV show. Unfortunately this was real life and not staged. It was one of the funniest things to be part of and also very sad at the same time.

This woman was about as low as you can get emotionally, but you still can’t drive drunk and take off in a hit and run. You also can’t throw your arm at the police either. This went down in history as one of the most unusual DUI crashes I’ve ever been part of.

As a collision investigator I dodge cars at crash scenes, but I never had to dodge a flying arm before. This was just another example how anything can happen at work.