The call originally came in as a burglary in progress. Samantha Smith, a 5 1/2-year veteran of the Kanawha County Metro 911 Center, was working the Sheriff's Department and West Virginia State Police radio, practically back-to-back with the dispatcher who took the call from the Glasgow Police Department.
It was about 7 p.m. on Dec. 13.
"Steve called for restricted [radio] traffic," remembered Samantha, 28. Steve was Glasgow Police Officer Steve Smith - Samantha's husband.
"Then I heard Aaron call, 'Gunshot wound to the chest!' and I knew it was Steve."
Steve Smith had just taken the full load from the blast of a sawed-off shotgun. Although off-duty at the time, the Glasgow officer had responded with Officer Aaron Roop to a house on Glass Fire Lane to investigate a report of an attempted break-in.
Steve, 35, had been with the Glasgow Police Department only since June. In October, a suspect had tried to run him over with his car.
It was Steve who walked up to the door of the house. He knocked. The door flew open, and Steve was looking down the barrel of a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun.
Steve began to whirl around. Instinctively, he raised his right arm to shield his side.
And that's what saved his life.
Dozens of shotgun pellets tore into his arm, smashing bone and muscle on the way, and ripped into his liver and lungs. The blast broke several ribs, and expanding gas from the point-blank shot was forced into Steve's body, where it became trapped under the skin.
"When I first got shot, everything was surreal," Steve said. "It seemed like everything was in slow motion, and Aaron was screaming to get off the porch."
Steve, who had just completed an associate's degree in respiratory therapy, looked down at the wound and knew it was bad.
"I looked down at my arm and chest,
and it looked like they were smoking," Steve said.
"I was conscious, but there wasn't much thought of talking. I felt like my body was on fire, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
"You look down at your chest, and you know you need everything that's in there," he said. "Every time my heart would beat, my blood would shoot out of my chest."
Back in Metro, Samantha fell to the floor. She was able to tell state troopers and sheriff's deputies where the shooting took place, but then had to leave her radio. She knew if she broke down it would only hinder getting help to her husband.
"It's your worst nightmare come true," she said.
"I actually thought I was going to die, and I had come to grips with that," Steve said. He called Roop over, and asked him to make sure Samantha was taken care of.
But, as the ambulance arrived, Steve decided he might live. More than that, he decided he was going to live.
"Once I saw the lights of the ambulance, I decided I was going to make it," he said. "I wasn't going to leave her. Not like that."
Samantha didn't know whether her husband of four years was alive or dead until she met the ambulance at CAMC General Hospital.
After the shooting, Nicky Don Smith, 36, was charged with malicious wounding and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He told police he thought Steve was an intruder.
Federal officials are investigating the case, as well, though. Just having a sawed-off shotgun is a federal offense.
Steve does not yet know if he'll be able to go back to work.
"That's a decision I don't have to make yet," he said. "It's all I've wanted to do since I was 12 years old, but I might not physically be able to."
"It's going to be hard going back in there," said Samantha, who plans on returning to work at Metro.
"It's been an awful year," she said. "We've had a ton of officers down this year - and we had a firefighter down."
On Dec. 6, Joey King, 61, of the Ruthdale Volunteer Fire Department, died when he fell off a bridge while looking for the source of a fire. King's girlfriend also works at Metro.
Steve said the dispatchers at Metro and local police and fire responders are close.
"I come up here all the time because my wife works here, and we're all friends," he said. "We're family."
chris dorst | Saturday Gazette-Mail photos
Glasgow Police Officer Steve Smith and his wife, Samantha, will never forget the night Steve was shot in the line of duty. Samantha, a dispatcher with the Kanawha County Metro 911 center, was working Dec. 13 when she heard over the radio that her husband had been shot in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun while answering a burglary call.
Steve and Samantha Smith talk about the night of the shooting that almost took Steve's life.
Reach Rusty Marks at [email protected] or 304-348-1215.
Copyright 2011 Charleston Newspapers
