Accidental Encounter

Cops almost never pull over cars without a very good reason. Walking up to a stopped car is the most dangerous situation any cop ever faces because it's completely unpredictable. If we arrive at the scene of an ongoing robbery or a domestic violence case, we know the worst might happen so we're prepared. We'll wear a vest, approach the scene with weapons drawn and we'll be taking advantage of any cover we can get.

With a traffic stop, we never know if the person inside the car we just pulled over is an ordinary person who's just nervous or upset, or if they've got a gun or a knife and are getting ready to ruin our day. We can't approach every car we stop with a drawn weapon and the only cover we have is the vehicle, so we have to be cautious and ready for anything.

Unless we're specifically looking for your vehicle, we'll only pull you over if you've done something wrong or if your driving is erratic. Erratic driving usually means you've had a couple too many or you're high on something. We'll see your vehicle wandering from side to side of the lane or slowing down and then speeding up repeatedly.

Then there are the drivers who were driving normally and then change as soon as they realize a patrol car is behind them. Before, they may have been stretching the speed limit a little and accelerating quickly when the light turns green. When they see the police car, they accelerate slowly and usually slow down hoping it'll pass them. They'll be continuously looking in the rear-view mirror to see if the patrol car is still there. That looks suspicious to us, so we'll follow you for a while, and if you keep doing it, we'll pull you over to find out why.

Some nervous drivers are only that -- nervous because they think they might have done something wrong. Others are nervous because they have something in the car they don't really want found like open booze, drugs, or a weapon.

Most cops will run your plate before pulling you over in order to get some information about what you might be doing and what to expect. If you have a record of drugs or weapons, they'll call for backup before stopping you.

When they see the flashing blue and white lights on a patrol car, most people look for a place to pull over out of traffic and then stop. They're not happy about it, but they do it because they understand running never works. You might have a really fast car and be able to get away from me because I'm not going to risk causing an accident, but no car is faster than a radio signal.

As soon as you put the accelerator to the floor, I'll be on that radio giving the dispatcher a description of your vehicle, which street or road we're on and which direction you're driving. The dispatcher will then send one or more patrol cars to intercept you. You'll eventually get caught, and running will land you in more trouble than you'd have been in if you'd just stopped.

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The asshole I was behind that miserable rainy May night wasn't doing anything wrong, and I was just driving my regular round. I'm not sure he even saw me for a while because he was talking on his cell phone. That's illegal, not to mention stupid, but he seemed to be in control of the vehicle and I wasn't about to get out of my car in the pouring rain to give him a ticket for just that. That all changed when he put the cell phone down.

The oncoming headlights lit up the inside of the older sedan enough I could see him glance in his rearview mirror, look back at the front, and then back to stare in the mirror again. A second later, he slowed down and he kept looking at his rearview mirror every couple of seconds. Both raised my suspicions so I ran his plate.

Thomas Woodward had been out of prison for about three months. He'd gone to prison because he'd chosen the wrong occupation and I'd been part of his arrest. One of detectives had arrested a minor drug dealer and the D.A told the dealer he'd cut a deal if the guy would name his supplier. The dealer said his supplier was some guy named "Woody". He didn't know his real name.

A cross-reference of aliases to real names on the state database turned up one Thomas Woodward. When we raided his house one morning at three A.M., we found ten small plastic bags of grass, a couple of handguns and about a thousand in cash. His stash wasn't really enough to qualify him as a major supplier, but Woody was still toast.

His lawyer negotiated a plea bargain. Thomas pled guilty to simple possession and the handgun charge was dropped since he hadn't attempted to use one or to resist in any way. He was sentenced to two years and had served one and a half.

There was really no reason to stop him for just driving slower, and the fact he'd been in prison didn't mean he was doing anything wrong now. The guy had only been acting a little odd. I was ready to let him go on his way. He just couldn't play it the easy way.

As soon as the light that had stopped him turned green, the guy floored the accelerator. I flipped on the lights and siren and reached for the mike. Before he got to the next intersection, the dispatcher had another patrol car started and about five minutes away. I heard the radio call for a second and third.

The light at the next intersection turned red when the guy was half a block away, but he didn't even slow down. I was doing fifty at the time and he was leaving me behind fast. Based on how fast he was pulling away from me, I guessed his speed at about sixty-five or seventy. He probably didn't see the little white hatchback that pulled into his path.

I shut off the siren, turned the patrol car to block both lanes of the street, then called in the accident and requested the EMT's. After putting on my slicker, I pulled the flashlight from my belt and walked up to Thomas's car.

Of all the things I'd seen in my career, car accidents were the hardest to stomach. The people who were dead when I got there weren't fun, but after fifteen years, I could handle them. It was the people who were injured and trapped in the car that still got to me.

I knew Thomas was driving a fairly old sedan. I didn't know the driver's side airbag had already been deployed at sometime in the past or that Thomas wasn't wearing his seat belt. I found that out when I saw his head and torso sticking half-way out of the windshield. It looked like he'd bent the steering wheel and post on his way out and that was holding him in that position.

He didn't seem to be breathing and when I felt his neck for a pulse, I couldn't find one. That wasn't surprising. Evidently he'd hit the inside of the car roof when he went out through the windshield. The top of his head had a pretty deep dent in it and there was blood all over the hood under him. I went to look inside the hatchback.

She was lying across the center console on her side. I couldn't really see through the cracked windshield well enough to know if she was moving or not. I went around to the other side of the hatchback and opened the door. The airbags, both the one in the steering wheel and the ones on the side had deployed so I had some hope.

She was unconscious, but her pulse seemed strong enough. I figured the air bags had at least saved her life. She wasn't just unconscious though. It looked like her left leg was broken. It was bent at a funny angle and it looked like the impact had pushed her hips under the steering wheel and trapped her between it and the seat. I keyed my lapel mike and asked dispatch for an ETA on the EMT's and backup for traffic control.

I'd just heard the EMT's were about six minutes away when she woke up and cried out in pain. I reached in and touched her hand.

"It's OK, Miss. You've been in a car accident and the EMT's will be here shortly. Try to lay still because I don't know how bad you're hurt."

She tried to move her head to look at me, but cried out in pain again. She winced when she grabbed my hand and gripped it so tightly it almost was painful. Her voice was pleading.

"Don't leave me, please."

"I won't leave you. Just hold still, OK?"

Another patrol car pulled up then. When Jim Chambers walked up to me he asked if anyone was still alive, I said the woman was and asked him to direct traffic while I stayed with her, then turned back to the woman gripping my hand.

I looked her over better with the light from my flashlight. When it passed over her twisted leg, I saw the blood stain on the ripped up leg of her jeans. I gingerly peeled back the torn fabric.

The bones from her lower leg were sticking out of the skin a few inches below her knee and dark red blood was flowing from the opening they'd punched on the way out. I knew the dark blood was from a vein and not as severe as red blood from an artery, but could still cause her to bleed out. The first aid I'd been taught was to put something absorbent over the wound and then keep pressure on it.

I eased back and told the woman I had to leave for a minute. She begged me not to go, but I had to get something to stop the bleeding. After gently pulling her hand from mine, I ran back to the patrol car and got the first aid kit out of the trunk. After putting on a pair of latex gloves, I grabbed a handful of the biggest gauze pads in the box and ran back to the hatchback.

I had to almost lie on top of the woman to reach her leg, but I got three of the gauze pads over and around the exposed bone. She screamed in agony when I pushed the pads down on her leg.

With my free hand, I found hers and held it again.

"I know this hurts, but you're bleeding and I have to do it. Do you understand?"

I felt a gentle squeeze to my hand and a low murmur.

"Don't let me die...please don't let me die."

I squeezed her hand.

"You aren't going to die. Just hold on to my hand. When the EMT's get here, they'll fix you right up."

A couple minutes later the EMT's arrived, as did another two patrol cars. Jack and Lisa listened to me while I told them about the compound fracture and that I was holding gauze pads on it to reduce the bleeding. Jack climbed over me and into the back seat, and then leaned over the driver's headrest with his flashlight.

"Just lift the pads for a second or two so I can see what's going on."

When I did, a trickle of blood flowed out around the bones and started dripping on the floor.

"OK, put the pads back and keep holding them there until we can get something better. Lisa, how about handing me some scissors, six of those big pads and an elastic bandage?"

Jack had to almost stand on his head to reach her, but he used the scissors to cut away enough of the woman's pant leg to expose the injury. When I pulled the gauze pads away, Jack covered the exposed bone and the wound site with heavy pads that looked like small diapers to me, then wrapped the woman's leg with the elastic bandage. He crawled back out of the rear seat.

"You can come out now. That'll keep her from bleeding out until we can get her to the hospital. I'll start an IV to keep her blood pressure up once we get her on the spine board."

As I backed out of the car, I saw the fire truck that's always dispatched to the scene of a car accident. They were there in case there was a car fire and to take care of any leaking fluids. They also carry the tools to cut a car apart if that's needed to get to the people inside. I walked over to the men putting on their fire suits.

"I don't think anything is leaking, but it looks like you're gonna have to cut the woman out of the hatchback. She's wedged under the steering wheel."

One of the firemen went to look inside and then came back and pulled a glass saw from a compartment on the side of the fire truck.

"I think we can get her out the passenger side. We'll take the windshield out and cut the steering column and go from there. It doesn't look like she's trapped anywhere else."

He took off his coat and covered the woman's face and chest as best he could and then backed out of the car. I'd seen them do this before, but I still cringed when he swung the axe side of the saw at the center of the windshield. The blade punched a hole in the windshield. He pulled it back out, flipped it end for end and then started sawing at the glass.

In seconds, he had sawn to the door pillar and then turned the saw and sawed down the pillar. The second fireman was working with the same speed on the other side of the car. Once they got the windshield free at the top and sides, they repeated the same motions to saw it away at the bottom. When it came free, they picked it up and carried it away from the accident scene.

Two more firemen brought the hydraulic power pack and the shear. One started the engine on the power pack. The first two firemen had come back with a long steel bar they placed over the opening where the windshield had been. The three then hooked the massive shear over the bar and placed the jaws around the steering column. After carefully checking that the woman's legs weren't in the path of the jaws, the fireman holding the shear moved the valve to close them. I heard the crackling sound of snapping plastic and then a loud ping as the jaws severed everything that held the steering wheel in the car. One of the firemen pulled the steering wheel and the stump of the steering column out of the car. The others pulled the shear and bar out.

The EMT's did some more checking and then I saw them nod to the firemen. The three firemen leaned over the dash and lifted the woman as gently as they could while the EMT's slid the spine board under her. In less than a minute, they had her out of the vehicle, strapped down, and inside their truck. I helped Jim and the other officers stop all the traffic as the EMT's flipped on their lights and siren and drove off.

Sometime while all this was going on, a second EMT truck had arrived. The firemen were cutting the pillars that held on the roof of the sedan so the EMT's could get to Thomas. They weren't being quite so careful with Thomas. The EMT's had confirmed he was past feeling anything.

Two hours after the accident happened, the intersection was clear again. Jim got back in his patrol car and continued his shift. I headed back to the station to write my report.

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According to the license and VIN numbers, the car belonged to one Sandra Owens. She was thirty-six and had no priors other than one speeding ticket five years before. I already knew who Thomas was, but I ran his name and printed his record to attach to my report. It would help explain why he'd tried to run.

The other explanation was what I'd found in the trunk of the sedan after I had the firemen punch the lock. Thomas had moved up a step in the drug world. He had almost five pounds of grass and sixty-three baggies of coke rocks there along with a sawed-off pump shotgun and three handguns. All that was in the evidence locker at the station.

I shook my head as I typed all that into the report. If he'd not run, the worst he'd have been looking at was another ten to twenty years. Instead, he'd killed himself and injured an innocent woman.

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It was three weeks later I found the note in my in-box when I got back to the station, and went to ask Maxine, the desk sergeant, what it was all about. She looked at her log.

"This woman called while you were out, said she was in a car accident three weeks ago and wanted the name of the officer who took care of her. I told her I couldn't give her that, so she asked if she could come down and meet you. I said she couldn't do that either. She sounded like she was telling me the truth, so after she gave me the date and location of the accident, I said I'd give you her number and you could call her if you wanted to. I ran the phone number. It's the same name as on your accident report -- Sandra Owens."

It was nearly midnight by the time I got home, so I waited until about one the next afternoon to call Sandra. She answered the phone on the third ring. I asked to speak to Sandra Owens.

"This is Sandra."

"Hi, Sandra. I'm the police officer who was at your car accident. I understand you're looking for me. How can I help you?"

"I'm so glad you called. The woman at the station who took my call kept giving me the runaround. I just wanted to thank you for everything you did."

"She was just following procedure, but she did believe you. That's why she gave me your phone number. You're welcome, but I didn't do much."

"Yes, you did. The doctor told me if you hadn't kept pressure on my leg, I might have bled to death. You held my hand and told me I wasn't going to die, too, and that made me feel like everything was going to be all right."

"How are you getting along now? OK, I hope."

"They tell me I am. They screwed some plates to my bones to hold everything together until they heal and I have a big cast, but it doesn't hurt much anymore."

"Well, I'm happy about that. You take care now."

"No, wait. Please don't hang up. I want to do something for you...just saying thank you isn't enough."

The department had very strict rules about any officer accepting any type of reward for doing his or her job. Too often, a so-called "reward" looks a lot like a payoff, and especially so if the person making the reward appears to have benefited. I knew this wasn't the case here, but I still couldn't accept anything. That's what I told her. She seemed frustrated.

"I can't even buy you a cup of coffee?"

I couldn't see how a cup of coffee could be construed as a payoff, so I said she could.

"Oh good. How about at that little coffee shop on Third? Maybe tomorrow, about two?"

"OK, I'll be there. I'll be in uniform, but uh...I didn't really see your face before the EMT's took you to the hospital. How will I recognize you?"

She laughed.

"You can't miss me. I'll be the one on crutches with a big cast on my leg."

I got to the coffee shop right at two and went inside. Like Sandra had told me, I didn't have trouble finding her. She was sitting at a table on one side with her left leg stuck out in the aisle. A pair of aluminum crutches were leaned against the wall next to her chair.

The long dress she had on mostly covered the cast, but as straight as her leg was, it was obvious she couldn't bend her knee. I wondered how she managed to get to the coffee shop.

The night of the accident, I hadn't had time to do anything but call for help and keep pressure on Sandra's leg. Once the EMT's got her out of her car, they'd whisked her away, so I didn't see her then either. What I saw now was a woman that looked her age, and that look was fantastic.

When I was eighteen and just out of high school, I thought young girls with their perky breasts and tight asses were hot. When I was twenty-five, those same girls were still hot. About the time I turned thirty, something changed. Maybe it was that I didn't seem to have anything in common with them, or maybe I just looked at women differently, but I started losing interest in really young girls. What did hold my interest was the wider, feminine hips and fuller breasts most women have by the time they've reached thirty or forty.

There was also the look of their faces. When I turned thirty, young girls didn't look much different than when I was in high school, and I was too old for that. A woman in her thirties looked more mature because she had character in her face.

Sandra was all that. Her face wasn't a cover girl face, but she had nothing to be ashamed of. It didn't look to me like she had on much makeup, but she was still a very pretty woman. I'd seen enough of her hair with my flashlight that night to know it was brown. I didn't know it was a rich auburn color, not red, really, but almost.

I couldn't see much of the rest of her because of the long dress and the fact she was sitting down, but unless she was wearing a well-padded bra that pushed her breasts up and out, she was nicely endowed.