The Fairfax patroller who had a brush with death during a traffic stop on Monday, May 1, is now “just glad to be alive,” the county’s Police Department told the press the following day.
Hair-raising footage from his cruiser, parked on the side of Fairfax County Parkway south of Braddock Road, was shared by the department, revealing the incident as it unfolded.
A speeding BMW M3 is seen careening toward and crashing into both the stopped vehicle and the officer’s cruiser—at one point appearing to “wrap around” the officer. Yet he was miraculously left unharmed.
Images from dashcam footage released by Fairfax County Police Department show a traffic stop on May 1:
The unnamed officer had stopped the driver of a gray BMW 750, allegedly for doing 73 in a 50 zone, Fairfax County Police Department stated. Drawing from years of traffic experience, he approached the sedan from the passenger’s side, between the car and the guardrail.
During their exchange, in the distance a lone black car can be seen approaching at a high rate of speed, rounding the curve on the opposite side of the parkway.
The officer takes notice as the car suddenly loses control. Spinning, it plows sideways across the grassy median at high speed in their direction.
Images from dashcam footage released by Fairfax County Police Department show a car crash that occurred on May 1:
The speeding BMW M3 rebounds and appears to brush the officer’s knees, tripping him—he was reportedly “struck and nearly killed”—before hitting his cruiser.
Staying surprisingly cool-headed, he is heard radioing in what happened, before proceeding to check on the driver, who sustained only minor injuries.
The 17-year-old driver of the speeding BMW M3 along with two juvenile passengers also suffered just minor injuries.
The driver is now being charged with reckless driving.
Neither drugs nor alcohol were involved in the crash, the department stated. Speed is believed to be the primary factor.
“You could tell that that vehicle that caused this crash was travelling at an extraordinary speed,” Deputy Chief Bob Blakley stated on Tuesday. “It was travelling well over 120 miles per hour when it lost control.
“What you see in the video is really an unprompted loss of control of a vehicle, and that’s just the critical speed of that vehicle where it could no longer maintain adhesion to the road.”
The name of the officer who conducted the stop was not released, as he is contemplating what happened and, for now, “just glad to be alive,” the department stated.
“He moved in the right place at the right time for that split second moment,“ Chief of Police Kevin Davis said. ”His recovery from that horrific collision was to do a two-step over the guardrail and get right on his radio and calmly describe what had happened. Not a lot of people can pull that off.”
Davis offers an additional word of advice for parents.
“Again, this is not lecturing, this is just awareness and education: be really careful about the types of cars that you may purchase or help purchase for your teenagers to drive,” he said. “Because the car involved in that collision yesterday is a whole lot of car—a whole lot of car for an inexperienced driver.”
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