business was going great. personal life wasn t going so well. i started drinking a lot. alcohol s a bad deal. and, you know, you do a lot of stupid stuff. a downward spiral almost ended sean s life. but after years of recovery and rehabilitation, he has a new set of legs and a new perspective. i miss a lot of things, but i see a lot more now. i mean, it s a different life. you notice things differently. you notice more about people and you see people s situations. the accident changes the lives of everyone involved that night. corporals crosby and denton are named policemen of the month by the national law enforcement officers memorial fund. not too many times that you take and pull somebody out of a vehicle that s on fire. sean donates the remains of his car to the fayetteville police department. it s part of a show and tell presentation he gives students
for bermudez and one that s still hard for her to talk about. i remember thinking that if this vehicle runs over me, you know, i m probably going to die. we can t see it on dash cam, but the driver jerks the car to the right. i remember getting thrown on to the pavement, and then i remember feeling the back tire running over my leg. at that instant, two officers who heard the call on the radio arrive on the scene. i remember two female officers yelling my name. stay with us, brenda. brenda, keep breathing, brenda, stay with me, stay with me. i thought i had heard, you know, don t die. everything will be okay. you re going to be all right, brenda. at that moment, i started kind of wondering if my legs were gone. he s driving. he s taking off.
to achieve that goal. now, what do you want to do, sir? the situation that has been escalating is about to explode. without warning, the driver makes a run for it, heading straight to his car. he reached around his shoulder blades and tried pull him back from the vehicles and the officers have seconds to react. that s when i saw a weapon coming across the back of the seat. gave a quick glance over to trooper harkeras he was moving around and was preparing to return fire and that s when i put fire on him from the front of the vehicle. the passenger runs and deputy gates takes off after him. i started to chase after the passenger, but i didn t run full bore yet because i didn t know trooper harker s condition. the driver jumps in the truck and speeds off with harker still hanging on. after i got disengage the
bottom of the ditch, the grass around the car was on fire at that point, too. we re basically still surrounded by smoke and flame. we had to move him again after we had gotten him out of the car just because the flames were starting to get toward him again. his feet were still on fire. i remember pulling it out with my hands. and at that time, i immediately started trying to talk to him because i knew he d probably go into shock if we didn t, so i kept on trying to talk to him. i remember him saying, wow, i can t breathe. emergency responders arrive four minutes after crosby and denton. everybody just started doing their job as far as taking care of the accident scene. ems was taking care of sean. it was so hot, the car fire was so hot and the smoke was so much, i remember having to back off because i couldn t breathe. they re able to get the blaze under control in just a few minutes. the officers are treated for
horrified at seeing someone burning alive on his watch, corporal crosby starts tearing at the passenger door, bending and pulling it away from the car. we re trying to just create a big space to try to pull him out. corporate denton grabs a fire extinguisher from the patrol car. we got to use this fire extinguisher. hoping to fight back some of the flames. when the fire extinguisher went dry, i even turned it over and tried to break out the windshield. cover your eyes. just to give us access to the driver. holy i need help. i can t breathe. i couldn t see anything inside the car. there s smoke everywhere. the fire is roaring, and the smoke is relentless. i can t breathe. get me out! they give it all they can to