Dade County major adjusts to life after crash
TRENTON, Ga. — The laying of a spike strip is an art, not a science.
In the heat of a police chase, Dade County Maj. Tommy Bradford said, the key is timing. An officer wants to surprise the fleeing target. It doesn’t matter if the driver is in a straightaway or a curve. It doesn’t even matter if the driver sees the spike strip — as long as they don’t see it too soon.
If they see it too soon, Bradford said, they can react. They can avoid contact and continue their getaway.
“It just varies,” he said during an interview Thursday. “It’s based off of speed, really. It’s a judgment call: trying to eye their speed and time it right. There’s not really a set distance [away from you] they need to be.”
On the afternoon of Aug. 7, a school resource officer called Bradford, asking for the spike strip. Law enforcement had been pursuing Lora Leann Wooten since she allegedly stole an air compressor in Fort Payne, Alabama. She had crossed state lines, was heading north up U.S. Highway 11. Dade County deputies joined the chase, heading toward downtown.
The problem was, schools were about to be released. Traffic was going to become a little heavier, as heavy as it becomes in a county with 16,000 people.
The spike strip happened to sit in Bradford’s office, in a box next to the door, bundled up like an accordion.
“I just grabbed them and did what was natural,” he said. “I took off. I got out, and it didn’t end well.”
On the southbound lane, he tossed out the metal trap and jerked it back, unfurling it across the pavement. The truck was in the northbound lane. He didn’t know how fast Wooten was driving. He can’t recall how far away she was when he put down the spike strips.
“She was maybe a little faster than I was thinking,” he said.
Bradford retreated toward the shoulder of the road. But, he said, Wooten swerved into the southbound lane and ran him over. As she barreled forward, to downtown Trenton, Bradford pulled himself off the road. His left leg hurt. He looked down. It was severed above the knee.
A passerby and an officer each pulled up soon after. The officer removed his belt, and he and the passerby wrapped it around Bradford’s thigh, slowing down the bleeding. The crash also broke his left pelvis, broke and separated his left shoulder and broke a finger in his right hand. As Bradford lay on the ground, he and the other officers cracked jokes about the predicament.
“What was done, was done,” he said. “I told myself, ‘You can be positive about it or negative about it. When you’re positive, things go better.’ I told myself I was going to be positive. I tell my kids that all the time. I can’t say nothing if I don’t do it.”
Later, at Erlanger Health System, surgeons moved his shoulder back into place and cleaned dirt from the inside of his left leg.
When he got out of surgery, he decided to retire from the department, which he joined as a dispatcher in 1993. He became a road deputy a year later and since held the positions of sergeant, captain, school resource officer and — now — chief deputy.
In his current role, he oversees a number of administrative tasks, from helping craft the department’s budget to applying for grants. Two sergeants and two lieutenants report to him. Bradford has held almost every role at the department, save for sheriff and detective. Investigations work does not appeal to him; it involves too much time behind a desk. He tries to drive around the county as much as possible.
Bradford underwent two other surgeries. First, doctors repaired his pelvis and cleaned out his leg again. Then, they cleaned his leg a third time, sealed the bottom and re-attached his hamstring muscle. He then transferred to Siskin Hospital for physical rehabilitation.
He has tried to build strength in his right leg, standing on it by itself and pulling it against resistance bands. He also has tried to make his left leg more flexible, moving it around as he lay on his back and side.
On Sunday, doctors let him go home so he could test himself out around his house in Rising Fawn, Georgia. County residents built him a wheelchair ramp to the front porch. They also cut out some of the walls next to the bathroom, allowing them to install a wider door so he could get through.
He returned to Siskin for more rehabilitation before being released for good on Wednesday. His wife, Mary Ann Bradford, an administrative assistant at the sheriff’s office, drove him home. On Interstate 24, they exited into Chattanooga Valley. As they reached the state line, he found about 20 police cars waiting to escort him into town.
Bradford already knew county residents planned something for him. Staff at Siskin made mention of a “big homecoming” awaiting him. As Mary Ann Bradford drove into town, he saw residents standing outside their homes, waving. More people were outside at the city square, and children and teenagers stood outside their schools as the cars looped through their parking lots.
While still in the hospital, Bradford had a change of heart. He wants to continue in his current role at the sheriff’s office. By the end of his first week in the hospital, he said, he was fielding work calls. The department was in the middle of trading in .40-caliber handguns for 9 mm, and Bradford needed to coordinate the exchange of the weapons with GT Distributors. He also needed to make sure all the officers had qualified to use their new weapons.
“I thought I was done,” he said. “I put in all those years. I just thought it was my time to leave. But the community stepping up the way they did, showing me the support they did … I was wrong. I was being kind of selfish.”
He may need another shoulder surgery. Doctors will evaluate him in about a month, checking whether the bone has healed on its own. If the shoulder heals and becomes strong enough, he can put weight on it, allowing him to swap the wheelchair for crutches. Surgery would push his recovery back about three months, he said.
He also will undergo a fourth surgery on his left leg, when doctors will remove dead skin. Depending on how his leg recovers, he will begin to work toward walking with a prosthetic.
Meanwhile, he’s stuck in his chair, looking at the back porch he hasn’t finished screening in, the lawn he can’t mow.
“There are a lot of things you take for granted every day,” he said. “Until you’re in a position like me.”