PET TRACKER
Chapter 9, Part 4: A Change of Direction (Part 1 of 2)
NOTE FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED: This story is also available as an audio recording, read by Kat, the author.
You are about to read a section from the middle of my memoir PET TRACKER. This book is available on Amazon as a softcover or e-book and on Audible as an audiobook. To read the FULL Substack (free and expanded!) version from the very start, go to this link, scroll down until you see the Scroll Down > icon-thingy and click on it. Then, scroll all of the way to the very bottom and you can start reading the beginning of the book with the “Dedication & Introduction.”
On December 30, 1997, I reported to work at the university for my usual graveyard shift. As always, I changed into my uniform 15 minutes before I was scheduled to go on duty. I put on my leather duty belt, checked my pistol to make sure it was loaded, snapped it into its holster, and headed downstairs to the briefing room.
I said hello to the sergeant on duty and settled in, expecting few or no calls for the evening. Because it was Christmas break, the students and most of the faculty were not on campus. This was typically the slowest week of the year.
About an hour into my shift, a call came over my radio.
“Be on the lookout for a possible DUI,” said the on-duty dispatcher. “Reporting party (RP) states a very intoxicated female is attempting to leave the faculty housing apartments in a red vehicle.”
The faculty housing apartments were just down the street from the police station. I jogged out the door, hopped into my patrol car, and headed that way.
The dispatcher’s voice came over my radio again. “RP states that the female just left in a red Ford hatchback, unknown license number.”
The drunk driver was headed my way. I stopped, turned off my headlights, and waited in the dark at the edge of the parking lot. From my position, I had a clear view of any cars leaving the faculty housing apartments. Within 30 seconds, a pair of headlights appeared as the car turned onto the main road, heading in my direction.
It was a red Ford hatchback. I turned on my headlights as the car passed directly in front of me. The speed limit was 25 miles per hour, but this car was clearly doing at least 45. I pulled out and accelerated to catch up with her.
The hatchback drifted off the right shoulder of the road, overcorrected, and swerved over the double solid lines into the oncoming lane. I hadn’t even turned on my emergency lights yet because I was not close enough to see the license plate. But now that the car was recklessly out of control, I activated my emergency lights.
The driver overcorrected to avoid oncoming traffic. She jerked her steering wheel hard to the right and slammed on the brakes. The hatchback skidded, careened off the roadway, and broke through a barbed-wire fence. It slid between two stone pillars and crashed into an antique wooden wagon under a historic building. It had been a very short, very dangerous drive for the intoxicated woman behind the wheel.
I pulled up behind the car and shone my spotlight in the driver’s rearview mirror, illuminating a single female occupant. To my surprise, as I approached the car, the backup lights came on. Apparently, she intended to keep driving.
“Stop the car!” I yelled at the woman. She continued to try to back up, but the car was stuck. I thumped her window with my flashlight. She stopped accelerating and jerked her head around to face me. Apparently, she hadn’t been aware that I was there. I opened the car door.
“Stop the car,” I repeated. She just looked at me with a blank stare, so I reached in and turned the key myself, cutting off the engine.
“Awww craaaap,” the woman drawled. It had taken a few moments for her brain to register that I was a police officer.
“Are you all right?” I asked her. She didn’t appear to be hurt, but I knew she had taken a pretty good slam.
“I’m okay,” she said, her voice thick with alcohol.
I took her elbow and guided her out of the car. “Are you sure you aren’t hurt? I can have an ambulance crew come take a look at you if you need it.”
“Naw, I’m all right,” the woman said as she struggled to find solid footing. To test her level of awareness, I asked her what had happened. She said she didn’t remember, then told me that she was an English professor from another campus. I administered the routine field sobriety tests, which included the heel-to-toe walk, reciting the alphabet, the fingertip-to-nose, and other balance and dexterity tests. She failed all of them.
“I have one more test for you,” I lied. “Turn around and put both of your arms behind your back, interlacing your fingers.” The woman complied. I removed my handcuffs from their case, snapped them on both of her wrists and told her she was under arrest for driving under the influence.
“Come on, officer!” the suspect half begged, half demanded. “You can just drive me home. You don’t need to arrest me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Watch your head.” I guided her into the back seat of my patrol car. When she saw that I was serious about taking her to jail, all attempts at politeness and cooperation were over. Instead, the English professor in my backseat showed her higher education language skills and swore like a sailor, alternately threatening and berating me for taking her into custody. She refused to answer my routine booking questions, such as her phone number, social security number, and address. She kept asking for a cigarette and said she was thirsty and wanted some water.
“My head hurts,” she complained. “Did you guys hit me on the head?” At that point, I became concerned. She had collided with the wagon at about 30 miles per hour. She had refused medical treatment, but I knew that her agitated behavior, although likely due to the alcohol, might be a sign of a head injury. I also knew that thirst is a sign of hypovolemic shock due to internal bleeding. Rather than take any chances with her health, I immediately drove her straight to the hospital.
“I want a cigarette,” the suspect announced as I guided her out of my patrol car and toward the emergency room door.
“You’ll have to wait until you get to jail.” I wasn’t about to tell her smoking was not allowed at the jail and that she was in for a nicotine withdrawal nightmare.
She stopped in her tracks.
“I want my cigarettes NOW,” she demanded, like a two-year-old about to throw a tantrum. I had to use a pain compliance “control hold” just to get her inside. Control holds are used by police officers to overcome physical resistance in a violent suspect by bending a wrist, an arm, or fingers in order to move or arrest a suspect. They inflict pain but no damage. The squeezing of the professor’s fingers was uncomfortable for her, but it enabled me to move her inside the hospital. She was screaming as we entered the emergency room. All the nurses, doctors, patients, and a sheriff’s deputy simultaneously turned to look at the noisy disruption that had just walked through the door.
The woman was swearing at the top of her lungs, punctuating her comments with high-pitched screams, and getting more out of control by the minute.
“DUI involved in car accident,” was all I had to say to the nurse behind the desk. She quickly escorted us to an empty room.
The suspect screeched and lurched for the door.
Another officer appeared and offered to assist me. He took the suspect’s other arm and helped pull her back to the gurney.
Furious, she began to kick at both of us. Two other security guards rushed in to help, but before they could grab my suspect’s legs, she took another kick at me.
To avoid the blow, I twisted and jerked away. As I did, I felt my lower back go out. Instantly, I felt a burning pain through my back and down the backs of my legs, something I had never felt before.
By the time a doctor examined the drunk driver an hour later, I knew I was going to need medical attention, too. The pain in my back was excruciating, but I was determined to see my case through. Two security guards helped me get the woman back into my patrol car, and I headed to the county jail. I radioed ahead, knowing I would need help when we arrived.
Four correctional deputies met us in the enclosed area where police cars unload prisoners who are being escorted into jail. When the deputies approached, the suspect was on her back, her hands still cuffed behind her, using both feet to try to kick out the back window of my patrol car.
The deputies pulled her from the car and maneuvered her into the jail.
I went to the doctor the next day and was immediately put on light duty. I was instructed to come to work in plain clothes, perform light office work, and take police reports over the phone until my back was better. But over the next few weeks, the pain in my back persisted. I developed numbness in my left foot and pains that radiated from my lower back down to my foot.
All the training and all searches with my dogs came to a grinding halt. My back needed time to heal. But as the weeks turned into months, it didn’t seem to be getting any better. Instead of working practice trails and searches with Rachel, A.J., and Chase, we all huddled together in my living room, watching television and fattening up.
