“I love you,” were Jessica Fris’ parting words to her hus when he left for work Thurs Little did she realize that tho words would resound in her mind as she heard her husba screams over the police scan shortly after dark.
“I could hear him screaming Jessica said, “but I couldn’t te what he was saying. I literall thought I was going to throw up.
Pea Ridge Police Officer Joey Ferris was on duty assisting a motorist stuck in a ditch on Slack Street between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. when he was hit by a passing car. He was standing in the rain on the side of the roadway motioning for traffic to go around.
His patrol car was in the parking lot of Dollar General, across the street.
“I remembered facing the car and waving the flashlight at the driver - realizing there was no time for me to get out of the way,” Ferris said.
“I remember my face bouncing off the hood. I must have been knocked unconscious; I don’t remember hitting the windshield or any of the flight,” he said. When he awoke, he was lying in thev ditch, running towards him.
“I was trying to get out on my radio. I tried twice but they were never able to hear,” Ferris said.
Cron and Ed Caruthers, who had been trying to get Cron’s car out of the ditch, both ran to Ferris. Caruthers said he tried to use Ferris’ radio to call for help.
“We’re both first responders, we knew what to do,” Caruthers said.
As Ferris lay in the wet grass more than 40 feet from the point of impact, Cron and Caruthers held his head and began to stabilize him while awaiting Pea Ridge ambulance personnel. His flashlight and notebook lay in the wet grass, the flashlight still shining. His broken glasses lay on the roadside fog line.
uthers knew something ppened because of a loud eard a thump, looked up w him (Ferris) flying h the air,” Caruthers said.
n’s wife, Evelyn Cron, was in the Dollar General g lot when she saw Ferris through the air. She called ith her was Cron’s sister, Cron of Washburn, Mo.
eard the hit, saw him fly h the air, and started running over to them,” Mrs. Cron said.
“It was not knowing if I was going to make it or not,” Ferris said. “My legs, my hand, my head - hurt. Thankfully, there were no broken bones. I have three stitches in my right hand, swelling in left ankle and right knee,” he said. Ferris was transported by Pea Ridge ambulance to a Bentonville advanced life support ambulance, which then took him to Northwest Medical Center in Bentonville.
After X-rays and cleaning, the young couple was ready to go home. Then, the emergency room doctor hit them with the announcement that they would be transferred to the neurologicalunit at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mo., for observation because the doctor had seen a subdural hematoma. He was transported to Springfield by Total Life Care Ambulance of Garfield.
“I was kind of under the impression I was going to get to go home. The doctor had to say it three times: ‘You’re going to Springfield,’” Ferris said. “I was more nervous then. I didn’t know how significant it was. Basically it was a brain bleed.”
At Mercy in Spingfield, “they redid some of the CAT scans and decided it was nothing significant.” He was released Friday.
Jessica said she was on the phone with her mother when she heard her husband on the radio calling for help and realizing that dispatchers at Central Communications did not hear him. “It was so sad because they didn’t hear him.”
She said she wanted to get in the car and go to him, but couldn’t leave her children, so her parents headed her way to take her.
Another Pea Ridge officer arrived at the house to stay with her until she could get to her husband.
“I thought about a lot of things - about the last thing I said to him when he left that day - ‘I love you,’” she said, tears glistening in her eyes.
“It’s always in the back of my mind, that something could happen, but I try to push it back just to get through the day,” she said.
Ferris, who served in Iraq, said he has not been injured like this before.
“People have been so overwhelming; it’s great that we live in a communitylike this. I can’t tell everyone thank you enough for what they’ve done,” she said.
Fellow police officers, the police chief, the mayor, all gathered in support of Ferris on the scene and then in the hospital emergency room.
If he could do anything differently, Ferris said he would have parked his car, with the lights flashing, in the roadway blocking one lane of traffic. He said he didn’t originally so as not to inconvenience other drivers.
“A lot of time, the general public doesn’t understand the things we have to do to provide extra safety for us and for the other people involved,” Police Chief Tim Ledbetter said. “We’re not trying to inconvenience them, just be safe.”
Ledbetter took Ferris’ broken glasses, found his prescription, with the help of a relative, and had replacements made and delivered to him Friday.
Ferris, 28, has been with the department since 2010, according to Ledbetter. He and Jessica, 27, have been together 13 years, married for seven of those. They have two children, a daughter, 5, and a son, 9.
State Police Cpl. Desmond Benton said Heather Patton, 18, of Pea Ridge was westbound on Slack Street (Arkansas Highway 72) when she struck Ferris.
She told police she did not see him. Patton was cited for careless driving/failing to keep proper lookout, according to the state police report.
State Police investigated the accident; Benton County Sheriff’s deputies and Little Flock police assisted in traffic control.
News, Pages 1 on 01/16/2013