Neb. Sheriff Hurt at Crash Scene

Feb. 16, 2010
Other responders also were hurt during a five-hour period Sunday.

You know it's a bad day as an emergency responder when you're one of the people who needs medical attention.

That happened, not once, but three times in Seward County in a five-hour period Sunday as Sheriff Joe Yocum and others responded to a wave of accidents in whiteout conditions.

In all three incidents, those injured were outside their vehicles at accident scenes when they were hit.

Yocum's injuries included three broken ribs and a possible torn rotator cuff.

He was just getting ready to climb back into the driver's seat of his car near Milford, he said Monday, "when I heard this horrendous crash."

"And the next thing I know, I'm on my belly and sliding about 30 miles an hour."

Here's a blow-by-blow chronology of what Yocum described as a "crazy" Sunday.

· 8:56 a.m.: Justin Hemphill of the Seward County rescue squad breaks his leg on Branched Oak Road west of Staplehurst. Hemphill is hit as he assesses an accident and is later transferred to a Lincoln hospital.

· 10:15 a.m.: Yocum is hit on U.S. 6 west of Milford as he responds to an accident.

· 11:59 a.m.: Sgt. Mike Vance of the sheriff's department gets leveled by a rescue unit on U.S. 34 west of Seward after another vehicle drives into an accident scene and pushes the rescue unit into him.

"It was a Sunday and usually a slower day of the week - church and those type of things," Yocum said. "Now Valentine's Day, the other denominator, might have played a role.

"But we couldn't understand why people would venture out when you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you."

The day's collateral damage included five emergency vehicles in all.

Criminal charges are possible in one or more of the incidents, Yocum said, because driving too fast for the conditions is a traffic offense.

He wasn't prepared to write it all off as unavoidable.

"I perceive that they had places to go," he said, "and I think their judgment was clouded by where they needed to get to."

Vance might need two to three weeks, or more, to recuperate, Yocum said.

In a department with only a dozen uniformed officers, it might be time to call in the reserves. Six have the appropriate training.

"We should be OK if it doesn't last more than a couple weeks."

Yocum was on his way to the dentist Monday to deal with a tooth chipped in the Sunday collision. He'll be at the hospital Wednesday for an MRI.

"I don't know that I'll carry a gun, for right now," he said, "because I don't know that I could draw it, first of all."

Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or [email protected]

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