After motorcade injuries, D.C. officer battles back to job

When he heard the rumble of the motorcycles and saw the flashing lights of the police motorcade whizzing by in protection of a Washington VIP, Richard Carter knew right then and there it was the job for him.

So the native Washingtonian worked his way up from beat cop in Capitol Hill and downtown neighborhoods to the coveted protective detail assignment in the special operations division. In his tall riding boots and bowling ball-shaped helmet, Carter revved the engine on his department-issued motorcycle and helped escort a range of people, including foreign diplomats and former president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney.

That's how it went until one day this March.

He was headed north on Rock Creek Parkway, riding third behind the lead motorcycle. The motorcade was headed toward the Massachusetts Avenue NW exit to return British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to his embassy after a morning meeting at the White House. Carter remembers seeing headlights directly in front of him. That's strange, he thought, because he knew he was in his correct lane.

Then, the crash.

The bones in his legs and in one arm protruded through the skin. He was rushed by helicopter to Washington Hospital Center, where orthopedic trauma surgeon James DeBritz installed titanium rods in his left thigh and shin, put a plate in his left upper arm and set his broken right wrist.

He spent about a week in the hospital recovering from the surgery that pieced his body back together. Then Carter went home, where his real recovery began. Others have marveled at his work ethic and all that he has come through. And now he's about to do what no one thought he could. He'll be back to work next month.

With both arms and hands in casts, and another cast on his left leg, Carter couldn't walk, get out of bed on his own, feed himself or do much of anything, he said. He relied on his wife, Tamu, a police officer in the 3rd District, who he said did everything for him, especially in those first few weeks.

"She gave me my shots, cleaned me up, changed me," Carter said. "I couldn't do anything. She had to feed me, get me to slide out of bed to the wheelchair, get me out to the transport vehicle to take me to my appointments."

His wife would come to his early-morning therapy appointments after working a night shift.

"No question, she was there. If I turned over and said, 'Ugh,' she said, 'Are you hurting? What's wrong?' " Tamu Carter said that as a fellow officer, she knew something could happen to either one of them. Still, she was shocked when her husband was injured.

"Part of being with him means doing whatever I needed to do to take care of him," she said. "His goal was to get back up on the motorcycle, and so his goal became my goal."