My Ride along adventure

It finally happened! I have been wanting to do a 'ride along' with the PO PO for a long time. For whatever reasons, it's been a long time coming but finally last Thursday was the day!

Tony picked me up in the patrol car at about 4pm. He was working from 3 to midnight and I was invited to 'ride along' for a little 'police adventure'!

I packed my fanny pack with my phone, my camera, my ID and my bank card and away I went!

First though........'here's the rules!'

As I entered the car that's what I heard "Here's the rules".

1. This car is your best friend

2. You can't get out of the car

3. If anything happens to me, you pick up this mic and tell them.

4. This car is your best friend. (I know..it's a repeat, but that's the way it was told to me!)

5. Put your seat belt on (I knew then, I was in trouble!)

And away we went!

"We're going down to Bristol", Tony said. I kinda looked confused for a moment and am thinkin'..what like 'Bristol Va/Tenn'?? Tony said "Yeah, like Bristol the racetrack! They are speed demons down on 17 going into Charleston, they think it's the Bristol speedway!"

It took us about 15-20 minutes to get to that area (Colleton County is a very very large county) and within minutes we had our first speeder of the day.

"This is like fishin'" I said to Tony.

"Yeah, the difference is, I KNOW I'm gonna catch something!" he replied.

He had got our first 'fish' on the radar doing 59 in a 35, a little red 'cooper'...cute cars by the way.

We just get back out on the highway and lo and behold another bite! This time, a black SUV. We had a problem though, the traffic suddenly became cramped..and bottle necked. Here we are speeding away to catch the SUV and the traffic stops, dead in front of us. The cars are all pulling over and Tony keeps edging up to the front. To our left, in the oncoming traffic lane, this is what we see. Except, no one was standing there..the accident had just happened.

Tony rolled up beside the SUV, rolled MY window down and the SUV rolled theirs down. He pointed a finger and said "SLOW IT DOWN!" The lady inside nodded as she stared at the mess of truck beside her.

At this point, Tony whipped the car around and pulled up behind the big rig. The one still in the road was loaded with 40,000 lbs of paper.

The one he hit in the rear, was loaded with beer. Here's where that one ended up.

It was rainy day and well, I guess either someone wasn't paying attention or someone had to brake too fast too soon, but however it happened, the paper loaded truck hit the beer loaded truck in the rear and sent it flying into the trees.

Our blue lights flashing, Tony made the call on the radio to get what he needed for the accident.

This time, I WAS allowed out of the car and I'm sure there were plenty of pissed off people on Hwy 17 that day. It happened just as the traffic was getting heavy with people returning home from work. I bet every cell phone in the area was going off that day saying stuff like "you better order pizza, I'm gonna be here a while!"

Traffic was let through, lane at a time until the wrecker arrived and ladies and gents, this was no ordinary wrecker. This wrecker had to be a big boy in order to 'haul' this load outta the woods and off the road!

Ahh there's the wrecker!

Now, I know that pictures do not show things in reality a lot of times, because this wrecker is a monster! It's HUGE! They ended up sending two, the blue one below (the Monster) and another red one, a bit smaller.

It takes some doing to get a big rig loaded with many many pounds out of the woods. The first truck (the one in the road) was hauled off pretty quickly, and as they could, the officers let traffic through. But when it came time to haul the one out of the woods, traffic had to be stopped either way for an extended length of time. You can't just 'pull a truck' out in a snap, it has to be done, slow and steady, at least with this one it did or it would have flipped over. Then everyone would have been way late for not just dinner, but breakfast too!

..He was in there good and the front of that truck got real acquainted with the bottom of those trees! It's a slow and steady process, but with the truck finally freed, the wrecker drove around front and hauled it off. With the accident cleared we were back on the road. The total time it took to get this accident cleared up was 2 hours or better, so we headed straight for dinner since it was almost 7pm.

We ate at the local seafood place and watched the 'Bristol speeders' go by as we were eating. Once we got back out there, it wasn't long at all before the next fish took a bite!

After "Bristol Fishin' a little while we went up on I-95 and Tony began teaching me what they look for when it comes to finding 'drugs and such'. I learned a lot. (and will learn even more next week!)

We caught one speeder on 95 and let me tell you..when you have to catch up to someone doing close to the 90's and you're in a parked position is not a trip you can take slowly! When Tony pulled out of the median, he turned on his headlights and floored it. The last time I looked at the speedometer it was reading 122!! OHMYWORD!

We went on several other calls that night. One chasing down three men who had pulled guns on people (one was caught) and even a 'disturbance' at the local McDonalds.

My evening was coming to a close, it's almost 11:30 and Tony begins heading on the road near my home. I was wide awake and ready to go all night, but alas, even a cop gets to have some 'off duty' time I suppose.
The entire night was an absolute blast and I can't wait to do it again! I get to do a ride along with Tony next Tuesday (if all goes as planned) so that I can see some 'daylight' work and be taught a little more about 'what to look for' and such. Join me next week as I go on my 'PO PO Patrol Adventure!"