Deadly drivers: Deputy endures painful consequences of crash

Carrie J. Sidener / Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: March 2, 2008

Sgt. Tracy Emerson's wife hasn't seen the video from his patrol car camera of the wreck that left him nearly paralyzed.

Angela Emerson doesn't want to watch the high-speed pursuit and his collision into an embankment. She doesn't want to hear his moans and calls for help.

"I don't want to hear him in that much pain," she said. "It was bad enough in the hospital."

The Campbell County deputy crashed pursuing a motorcyclist who officials say was driving over 140 mph. Roger Lee Johnson of Lynchburg was charged with driving on a suspended license. Deputies say he has been convicted of that crime seven times before.

The September crash crushed one of Emerson's vertebrae, leaving him in a body splint for two months and out of work for four months.

"This was the worst pain I have ever been in," Emerson said.

He returned to patrol in late January. His shifts are four hours shorter as he adjusts to the pain in his spine from sitting in a car for eight hours weighed down by 17 pounds of equipment on his gun belt.

"That's the way my back is going to be forever," Emerson said. "Every night sleeping I have pain. They told me it may get better in a year but after a year, that's the way it's going to be."

If the fractured vertebra deteriorates more, doctors will have to fuse it with the ones surrounding it, which will severely limit his motion.

Emerson was three miles from his home in Altavista when he noticed two motorcycles speeding north on U.S. 29.

As he turned around to pursue the drivers, they sped off. He followed one of them onto U.S. 460 westbound at speeds of up to 140 miles per hour.

At one point, Emerson could have ended the pursuit by wedging the biker against the guardrail, but he worried about injuring the man.

The driver swerved up the Leesville Road exit ramp and stopped suddenly. Emerson didn't have time to stop. He swerved to avoid running over the driver and locked his brakes.

"He knew I was coming up on him and he knew I was going so fast," Emerson said. "He knew what I was going to do. At the last second I have to go left and lock my brakes to keep from running over top of him."

Emerson's dash camera recorded the screeching brakes and the crash as his car fell in a ditch and slammed into an embankment at about 60 mph.

Then the screen goes black and Emerson's voice can be heard on the radio.

"Campbell, I need help. I'm 10-50. I need help," he called into the radio. 10-50 is the code for a car crash.

Then he began to moan in pain.

Emerson looked over his shoulder at the driver.

"He looked right at me and took off," Emerson said. "I already knew my back was broke. I knew I wasn't paralyzed but I knew my back was broke. The airbag hit hard. I actually felt it and heard it snap."

The deputies on duty that night were the same crew working when Campbell County Deputy Jason Saunders was killed in a police pursuit five months earlier.

They rushed to the scene and helped Emerson out of the car.

He was transported to Lynchburg General Hospital. There, scans revealed that 85 percent of one vertebra in his lower back was crushed.

Angela Emerson was at home asleep when the phone rang. A deputy told her that her husband had been in a wreck.

She worried the entire drive from Altavista to Lynchburg. "I had a lot of bad thoughts along the way," she said.

Emerson said he worried more about the stress on his wife than his own injuries.

"My wife is nervous," Emerson said. "She wants me to do desk work. She said she never worried because she always knew I was careful. Now she's worried."

Emerson is working day shifts for now and she worries a little. That concern will intensify when he goes back to midnight shifts.

"Before, I tried not too worry much," Angela Emerson said. "I have a lot of trust in him and his skills. Not that the accident has changed that, but I still worry.

"I told him 'No more pursuits.' He's probably already been in one."

He plays the pursuit over and over in his mind. His conclusion is that his only choice was to crash or run over the driver.

Johnson was charged after deputies traced the license plate back to the motorcycle's owner, who led deputies to Johnson.

He is facing charges of leaving the scene of a wreck, reckless driving, felony eluding arrest and being a habitual offender. Johnson's hearing is scheduled for April 24.

Because Johnson has been convicted multiple times of driving while suspended, any time he is caught behind the wheel it's a felony.

"In his case, he would have been arrested," Emerson said. "I couldn't have ticketed him. Any time he drives anything with a motor on the highway - a lawn mower or anything - it's

a felony."

"Anyone on the road that night could have been killed by him going 130 miles per hour."