CARY, N.C. -- Traffic was thick but fluid Friday evening when Jessica Elliott saw Cary motorcycle police officer Chad Penland accelerate toward the Morrisville-Carpenter Road and N.C. 55 intersection.
From three cars back, Elliott in her GMC pickup saw the crash unfold.
As Penland sped through the intersection -- lights on and siren blaring, the state Highway Patrol said -- a white pickup traveling the opposite direction turned left in front of him, she said.
The officer hit the side of the pickup face-first, was ejected from his bike, and flew 20 to 30 feet over the truck's bed.
"I didn't expect him to be alive after I saw what happened," Elliott said in a phone interview Saturday. "He flipped up in the air and landed hard."
Elliott, 37, of Lynchburg, Va., travels to Cary a few times a year to visit family.
She knows that traffic on Interstate 40 is heavy at rush hour.
So on Friday she took N.C. 55 to avoid it.
Her decision helped save Penland's life.
Trained for this
Elliott, a registered nurse with 14 years of experience at hospitals and schools, didn't hesitate.
She stopped her car, told her 2-year-old daughter to stay put, called 911, and ran into the road where the officer lay bloody and bruised.
"He never lost consciousness; he was just rolling around in pain," Elliott said.
"He was losing a lot of blood."
Penland's helmet stayed on, but she feared the worst.
He was choking on his blood, she said.
"His airway wasn't stable. He didn't have an airway. He had lots of injuries to his jaw," she said. "He was in bad shape, really bad shape."
Elliott said she helped him breathe by gently rolling him over so he could clear his throat.
Gasoline leaked from the motorcycle.
The two stayed together.
Elliott coached him through his breathing.
"He asked me if he was going to die. I told him no, (and) that we'd get through it," she said.
Emergency medical responders arrived soon after.
Elliott said Penland's injuries were perhaps the worst she'd ever seen.
"It's amazing that he wasn't paralyzed or killed," she said. "I thought he was going to die."
Thirty years ago
Elliott said she found little rest Friday night.
The image of the injured officer stares at her when she closes her eyes.
She was back home in Lynchburg on Saturday night, thinking about the unusual circumstances that led her to the accident.
She said she never drives N.C. 55 to her brother's house.
She almost always takes I-40.
Thirty years ago, Elliott was in the car when her father, a Virginia state trooper, witnessed another motorcyclist crashing into a car.
Elliott, then 7, remembers watching as her father aided the motorcyclist, who had broken his jaw and couldn't breathe.
She said her father received an award from the Red Cross for saving the man's life.
But Elliott said she's not a hero.
There 'for a reason'
She said she just hopes people will pause and think about the odd circumstances that saved a police officer who works 130 miles away from her home.
"I don't know what your faith is," she said.
"But I believe I was where I was for a reason."
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
