Officer recalls high-speed chase

Jeff Fuller, 36, of Appleton had plenty to be thankful for over the holiday. He was back to work as a Waldoboro police officer. He wasn’t confined to a wheelchair. He could walk. He was alive.

Fuller is the police officer who was injured in a high speed car chase after a Jan. 17 bank robbery in Newcastle. He was struck by the robber’s stolen pickup truck, then dragged down a Jefferson highway.

He had worked as a carpenter and at other jobs when he started working out in 1998 with the Waldoboro police chief, who suggested a career in law enforcement. “I thought I would give it a try. I enjoy it. It is never dull,” he said.

The job got a little too exciting on Jan. 17 when Fuller was taking a coffee break at the Big Apple on Route 1 in Waldoboro. He heard the radio report of the armed bank robbery in nearby Newcastle. Then an off-duty firefighter called in a report of a pickup truck speeding from the scene.

“We are all spread pretty thin and we all try to back each other up. I heard that Detective Ken Hatch, a friend, had pulled the truck over and there was a gun involved. The truck made a U-turn, took off and the chase was on,” Fuller said.

Although the car chase is a staple of television shows like “COPS,” many police officers do not look forward to them. “I have been in a few chases, but I break it off more times than not when the possibility of public harm outweighs the apprehension. This was different. If they will take a gun into a bank, you wonder what else they will do,” he said.

“This was the worst car chase I had ever seen. I had never seen such disregard for human life. They went on the opposite side of an [traffic] island on Route 1, forcing four or five cars off the road,” he said.

By that time, local, state and county units were headed for the scene.

The bank robbers finally pulled over on Route 32 in Jefferson. Hatch pulled his cruiser in front of the pickup truck and Fuller blocked it from the rear. They approached the truck with guns drawn. Fuller had a “bad feeling,” expecting a shootout.

He saw the truck backup lights come on and knew what was coming. He tried to leap for the ditch, but the lurching truck caught him and pinned him against his own cruiser. Then the truck went forward, dragging the police officer down the highway. “I thought it was my last day on Earth. But they kept telling us at the police academy to never give up when you are in those situations. I didn’t,” he said.

Hatch fired at the speeding vehicle, but the pair escaped only to be captured a short distance away. The driver agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated assault and was sentenced to 24 years in prison with all but 16 years suspended. The robbery, committed with a pellet gun, got $3,700 to support the robbers’ drug habit, police reported.

An ambulance raced Fuller to Miles Memorial Hospital, but he was quickly transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland with two broken bones in his shin, seven broken bones in his pelvis and a displaced hip socket.

“Will I ever walk again?” was his first question to the medical staff.

“You won’t be running any marathons soon, but you will walk,” the doctors told him. He was amazed when they had him walking – with a lot of help – within two days. It was two weeks in the hospital and six more weeks in a rehabilitation center before he could go home.

“They say the success of rehabilitation depends on how much you want to go home. I really wanted to go home,” he said.

“I am so thankful. People tell me I am lucky to have only a slight limp. I am glad I wasn’t confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I still don’t have all the strength back in my legs,” he said. He returned to light duty at the department only last month.

When he is home in Appleton, he skips television shows like “COPS” with their endless car chases. “I like the fishing shows more,” he said. Those fishing shows are a lot more relaxing.

Jeff Fuller had a wonderful Thanksgiving.