One night I responded to a crash and noticed a white car with major damage to its left rear area. At first glance I could tell it was broadsided. The other vehicle had damage to its front end with most of it on the right front area. I could also tell the white car had spun around from the impact. The driver of the white car was being loaded into the ambulance and she was my priority because I wanted to speak to her before she left for the hospital.

I jumped into the ambulance with the two paramedics and the EMT. The first thing I noticed was how wide open her eyes were as they darted side to side. She was about thirty years old with blond hair. She was strapped down to the backboard with a cervical collar around her neck. She was being asked questions from all different directions and she seemed overwhelmed by everything. There was something in her eyes that made me notice her more though. They were wide with fear. I stood there as the paramedics asked her numerous medical questions, but I only remember two of them.

“Are you pregnant?” asked one of paramedics.
“Yes.”
“How far along are you? he asked.
“Twenty weeks.”

Now I knew why she looked the way she did and I didn’t blame her. I learned she wasn’t from the area and she was trying to get back to her hotel when the collision occurred. She was alone and two hours away from home. That’s a lot for anyone to deal with by themselves. When it was my turn, I started asking her questions about the collision.

She told me she had been in one of the right lanes when she started to move over to get into the left turn lane. She wanted to turn left at the light because her hotel was at the northeast corner of the intersection. She was then struck as she changed lanes. Based on the damage to both vehicles I could tell she had tried to cut perpendicular across the eastbound lanes from the far right to get to the far left when she was broadsided. Not a safe thing to do on any street.

During the interview, I felt bad for her because I could tell she was worried about the baby. When I was done I handed her a card with my name and the report number written on it. I then told her I had to leave.

Just as I was about to get out of the ambulance she said, “Pray for me.”

What she said was powerful and there was something about how she said it that stuck with me. It was as if a rope had been thrown around me to prevent me from leaving the ambulance when she said it. Without hesitation I said, “I already am.” I left and was hopeful nothing would happen to the baby.

A few days later I found out the baby had died.

Less than a week later the woman’s husband called the follow up traffic investigator to tell him what happened. On the night of the collision the baby still had a heart beat when she left the hospital with instructions to follow up with her doctor. It was a holiday weekend so she couldn’t see her doctor until Tuesday. It was supposed to be a routine checkup, but that all changed when her doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat. She called her husband, who then called the police department. He was crying when he told the investigator what happened.

I felt bad because the woman was at fault for the collision and she would probably blame herself for the rest of her life. She could have driven two hundred yards to the next traffic signal and turned into the hotel parking lot also. This never would have happened if she had done that. Instead she tried to cut across traffic, which was coming up from behind her at about forty miles per hour as the cars approached a green light. If she could only have those five seconds back again.

I can still see her face as she said those words that hit me like thunder and lightening in  a mid-west summer storm. The only difference was this storm will haunt her for the rest of her life……….

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.

On Saturday night, I was in the office doing my paperwork when I plugged my phone into a charger on another desk. I never do this and I soon forgot about it. My partner and I got a late call and we left with my phone still sitting on the desk. We were about to drive away when I realized my phone wasn’t in my shirt pocket.

“Do you want to go back?” my partner asked.
“No, it’s OK. No one is going to call me,” I replied, as we drove away.

About thirty minutes later, dispatch contacted us on the radio, asking me to call them. Of course, now I needed my phone and I was glad my partner had his. I was working a triple hit and run crash with the same suspect vehicle, which had been dumped in the city north of ours. Officers were impounding the suspect vehicle for me and I was just about to drive over there to look at it before the tow truck took it away. I just assumed the phone call to dispatch was related to the incident I was on. I called dispatch and a familiar voice answered. I said hello and waited to hear that someone was trying to report the car stolen because that’s such an original idea in a hit and run crash.

The dispatcher said, “Karen hit her head. She needs you to call her.”
“What?” I asked, because this wasn’t what I was expecting to hear.
“Karen hit her head and she’s bleeding. She wants you to call her,” the dispatcher explained.
“OK, thanks,” as I hung up.

I instantly thought of my phone on the desk and knew my wife had tried to call me. She would never call dispatch unless it was an emergency. I called her cell phone and my wife told me I had to come home now because she needed help. She briefly told me she had tripped over the cat and hit her head on the corner of the fireplace mantel. She had ended up on the floor after the impact and was still bleeding. I got off the phone and we cleared the hit and run call. I couldn’t just go home at the moment because we still had to drive back to the station, unload our gear and then change.

Thirty minutes later I called and said I was on my way home. My wife said the bleeding stopped, but started again. I told her to call my mom to watch the kids because she going to need stitches. I ended up meeting them at the emergency room and my mom took my kids home so they could go back to sleep. This was my second time in a different ER tonight. Earlier I had gone to check up on a pedestrian who had been struck by a car. When I’m at work I’m used to walking into the ER and getting what I need from the nurses. I’m usually out of there pretty fast. Now I was in regular clothes and had to sit and wait.

They checked her head out and said she was going to need stitches for sure. We then went to the waiting room and waited… And waited…

While I was sitting there she retold the story of how the cat had tried to kill her. She had been walking to the restroom when the cat went in front of her. She tried to avoid the cat and stepped one way. She had to step a different way because the cat went left and then right. She then tripped and lost her balance. She described in great detail how her head hit the corner of the fireplace mantel, which made me cringe at the thought. She then ended up on her back. With a dazed feeling my wife instinctively reached up to her head while on the floor and felt blood on her hand. She finally was able to get up and dripped blood on the floor down the hallway as she tried to turn on the light. She described it looking like a homicide scene with blood on her face, on her nightgown, the carpet, the bathroom floor and on the light switch.

My wife told me the cat looked like she knew something was wrong. This cat loves my wife more than the rest of the family combined because she feeds her. I’m sure the cat was worried about her next meal of canned food after she saw the blood running down my wife’s face. My wife then went on to tell me what my mom had said after she called her to come over.

“Your mom thought you were shot.”
“Why?” I asked.
“She saw the phone number and thought something had happened to you when I called.”

I thought “wow” to myself. I never even thought about that when I asked my wife to call my mom to watch the kids.

Hours later we were home and my wife had five brand new staples in her head confirming the epic clash that occurred with the cat and fireplace mantel. It was a reminder of my wife’s cat like ninja reflexes and the assault our pet made in the dark. My mom was at my house and told me it was good to see me as I gave her a kiss on the cheek before heading upstairs for bed at 8:45AM. She ended up taking my kids to visit my grandparents and I went to pick them up later.

When I saw my mom that night she described how she felt when she saw my wife’s number pop up on her phone at 4AM. This is because nothing good ever happens from a phone call at that time of night. She then heard my wife’s upset voice and my mom described how her heart froze when she heard my wife say she needed her to come watch the kids. This was before she learned about my wife’s injury.

My mom said, “I was scared because I thought something happened to you,” as she hugged me.

I recently went to seminar on officer stress and suicide and one of the topics brought up was how our children feel when we go to work. Most kids don’t usually have to worry about mom or dad going to work, but ours do because we don’t have a normal job like other people. The instructor told a story about picking up their son early from school one day. The parents wanted to surprise him by taking him to lunch because he was getting his braces off. The son thought the braces were coming off next week, but the officer’s wife had scheduled it for a week earlier so it would be a big surprise. They ended up with the surprise instead.

When the son was pulled from class he was told he wasn’t coming back for the rest of the day and to report to the office. The son then cried as he walked to the office because he thought his father had been shot at work. When he saw his dad he ran to him and hugged him as he told them he was scared. It was big wake up call to his parents, who never thought their child worried about this the way he did. The instructor encouraged us to go home and ask out kids about this and talk about it.

I went home and asked my son, who is twelve, if he worried when I went to work at night. My son told me he did. I asked him what he worried about.

“That you’re going to get shot,” he replied.

I was surprised he actually thought that. I next asked my daughter, who is nine years old, and she gave me the same answer. I had never thought to ask them until I took that class. I explained how well we’re trained and how my goal every night was to be safe. I told them it was OK to worry, but not to let it bother them because I planned on coming home after work no matter what. My wife is used to me working the night shift. I’ve worked it ever since I met her and we’ve been married over thirteen years. I always knew my mom worried, but I guess I never really thought about it after twenty years until this past Sunday.

In closing, I leave you with this.

Hitting your head on the corner of the fireplace mantel is something to avoid in the middle of the night. The cat and my wife had made up and are friends again.

Secondly, talk to your kids about the job because chances are they’re worrying about it a lot and you don’t even know it. Depending on their age, some might even be stressed out about it because of what they have seen on TV, regardless if it’s the news or a cop show. Give them an extra hug and kiss on the cheek because they might need it.

Be safe.