With Seconds To React, Officer Leaps And Lives

A Quick Hop Becomes Free Fall From a Bridge

At first, police officer Sarah White felt foolish about what she'd done: While working an accident scene at the edge of the Capital Beltway in the middle of the night, she avoided a jackknifing tractor-trailer by jumping over a concrete wall, realizing too late that she was actually on a bridge.

This week -- her back and hip extremely sore, but otherwise in relatively good health after a 24-foot free fall -- White returned to the scene for the first time. The more she looked around, the more she realized what seems clear in broad daylight: Given the situation, she didn't have much choice.

"My mind was on survival mode: Run, run, run. Hide, hide, hide," said White, 31, as she stood on the patch of grass where she had landed, within 10 feet of an asphalt bike path, and looked up at the Beltway crossing above her.

The 5-foot-tall White had sent herself soaring over a three-foot wall. She said the fall happened so quickly that she didn't have time to tense up and thus landed in as relaxed a state as possible. Based in part on a deep pain near where her gun is holstered, White said she thinks she landed on her right side.

"But I'm not sure," she said. "I just remember being on all fours and asking, 'What the heck just happened?' "

The incident unfolded when White was a little more than halfway through a night shift that started Oct. 6, a Tuesday.

At 2:16 a.m., White received a call that a truck had crashed on the inner loop of the Beltway, between the Georgia Avenue and U.S. 29/Colesville Road exits. The crash scene was blocking the far right-hand lane.

White arrived to control traffic. With her flashers on, she parked her car in the right lane, behind the truck. Another officer had laid down about a dozen roadway flares.

White walked toward the truck. When it was clear that other officers would be taking control of the scene, she started walking back to her cruiser.

That's when, directly in front of her and coming around a curve, was the skidding, jackknifing, 18-wheeler. White turned around and began running as fast she could. Looking over her left shoulder, she could tell the truck was about to ram her cruiser.

One thought rushed into her mind: Even if her cruiser halted the truck, the impact could send debris flying toward her. "Little did I know I was on a bridge," White said.

The Bowie native hadn't grown up wanting to be a cop. At the University of Maryland, she received degrees in psychology and criminal justice and joined the Montgomery County Police Department at 25.