[WARNING: Violent content.]
There are some injuries you don’t walk away from. Example: Getting shot in the neck. Expectations be damned, however, as cop Quincy Smith survived just that.
The 14th Circuit Solicitors Office released video Wednesday of the harrowing incident from Jan. 1, 2016. Smith, an officer with the Estill Police Department in South Carolina, responded to a robbery call, authorities said. His body-camera goggles, which he purchased for $30 online, were on.
The officer then confronted the suspect, who was on a cell phone. He repeatedly demanded the man to stop walking or he’ll tase him.
Did the man cooperate? Well, no. His left hand still on the phone, the suspect took out a gun, and fired, striking Smith. Video shows the officer escaping to his patrol car to call for backup.
“My arm is broken, and I’ve been shot in the neck,” he said.
A male witness came to his aid.
“Dispatch, please tell my family I love them,” Smith said in the radio.
But he survived. This officer testified at the trial of 29-year-old Malcolm Antwan Orr, the man arrested for the shooting. According to authorities, Smith called the body-cam goggles “the best $30 he ever spent.”
14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone said the defendant fired eight times, according to the Jasper Sun Times. Dr. James Dunne, who treated Smith at the hospital, testified that one bullet severed a vein, and another struck his torso.
Orr was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison for attempted murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
In other news about cops improbably surviving ridiculous injuries, an officer in Texas was recently hit so hard by a vehicle he flew into the air.
[Screengrab via Quincy Smith]