148 - Near-Fatal Bird Strike: Pete (and Michelle) Tucker, Ontario Provincial Police

Nobody likes to think about an officer receiving catastrophic injuries.  But sometimes their stories can be as inspirational and encouraging as they are tragic and horrifying. Our guests today are Pete and Michelle Tucker.  Pete was a motorcycle cop in Ontario, Canada, near Niagara Falls.  Pete's injury came when he was struck in the head by a large bird at highway speeds.  Knocked unconscious, Pete drifted into a guard rail, which severed his left leg and catapulted him into the median, causing extensive injuries.  Now, years later, we're going to talk to Pete and his wife Michelle about their worst day imaginable.

Music is by Mini Vandals

Hey Chaplain podcast episode 148

Tags:

Police, Accidents, Amputation, Hospital, Humor, Injury, Medical, Motorcycles, Spouse, Tourniquets, Vehicles, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's a little bit of me, and you gotta take this the way I mean it, not the crazy way it sounds. There's a little bit of me that wishes I got shot instead. Because that's cooler, more police related, more tough guy-ish, than I took a bird in the face.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to Hey Chaplin. My name is Jared Altic, and I'm a chaplain with the police department. The Hey Chaplin podcast is about talking to police officers who say, Hey Chaplain, I've got a story to tell and some hard-earned wisdom to share. The guests on Hey Chaplin come from across the world, from the LAPD to Scotland Yard, from Canada to Kentucky. They are sharing their wisdom so that you don't have to learn everything the hard way. And as a patrol chaplain in Kansas City, I think that you need to hear encouragement, especially on difficult topics. Nobody likes to think about an officer receiving catastrophic injuries. But sometimes their stories can be as inspirational and encouraging as they are tragic and horrifying. This year I've been blessed to meet multiple couples where the officer and his wife lived through everyone's worst nightmare. And now they're sharing their story to help you and to help me. The first couple I'll introduce you to, and our guest today, is Pete and Michelle Tucker. Pete was a motorcycle cop in Ontario, Canada, near Niagara Falls. For my American listeners, think of Pete as the Canadian equivalent to a state trooper. Pete's injury came when he was struck in the head by a large bird at highway speeds. Knocked unconscious, Pete drifted into a guardrail, which severed his left leg and catapulted him into the median, causing extensive injuries. Now, years later, we're going to talk to Pete and his wife Michelle about their worst day. Imagine. Here's Pete and Michelle Tugger. Hello, Pete. Hello, Michelle. How are you today? I am very good, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Good thanks. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

I'm doing great. I'm glad to have you both on today. Michelle, how were you notified?

SPEAKER_02 2:30

So actually, I was at work at the time of Pete's accident, and he had been away for a few days on his golden helmets um session. He had been away and then was doing a VIP escort. And we had spoken um the night before, but for whatever reason we hadn't spoken that morning, which was unusual. We must have both been very busy. And I went off to work, and at the time I was the manager of a gymnastics club. So I was coaching some children, some gymnastics, and my phone uh kept ringing. It was off the side of the room, but it kept ringing, and I kept ignoring it because I shouldn't answer my phone during a class. But after a few minutes, I thought, you know what, I better answer it. It might be an emergency. And it was my daughter who happened to be 16 at the time and she was home because she had exams at school. And she said to me, Mom, there are two police officers at the door. And at that point, because of previous conversations Pete and I had had, I knew that having two police officers at your door when he was off at work was a very bad thing. So at that point, she said, they're on their way to your work. So I basically waited in my office until they arrived. And I remember looking down at my phone and thinking to myself, I should call him. I should see if he's okay. But then I also knew there was no point. I knew he wasn't going to answer. And then I just waited and they walked in. And as they approached me, I looked at their faces and I just said, Is he dead? And they said, No, but I won't lie. It's really, really bad. And we need to get you to the hospital right away.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

And they did not notify your daughter. They did not. Or let her hang in.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

No, they did not notify her. She had no idea. They just said we need to speak to your mother. So of course, actually, when the police picked me up and put me in the police car, I did say to them, we have to stop at my house so I can tell my daughter that her dad's alive. So we did that, and I said, But I'm going to the hospital. Um, and at that point they gave me a police escort, or there was a police escort that took us um to the hospital, which was about normally about an hour away, and we got there in about half an hour.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Wow. We're provincial police, so we're like a state police service. And my office where I am, even though it's Niagara Falls, Ontario, there's probably only about 25 cops that work in the office. So the staff sergeant and constable that came to tell her were friends of mine. They weren't strangers. They're people we hung out with, is who came to tell her that I was hurt. And they didn't know how bad I was.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

And Pete had always said to me, if one officer comes to the door, I'm hurt. If two officers come to the door, I'm dead. So when she told me that there were two officers that came to the door, my heart just sank. I thought, you know, I really did think for there was probably at least five to ten minutes there where I really believed that he was probably dead. And it wasn't until I asked them and they said no, but it's really bad, that I knew he was still alive.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

I don't know if I'll use this in the interview or not, but no chaplains involved in the notification?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Um, once I arrived at the hospital and basically found out that Pete had been essentially what the situation was, and he was rushed into surgery. Uh there was a chaplain that approached me. I don't think the title was chaplain. It may have been, may have been, but it was so an OPP chaplain approached me and they basically asked me what religion Pete was. Um and I think they I didn't realize until after, like with the questions that they were asking. I really didn't clue in until after the fact why they were asking me. And then later on, I did figure it out and thought, oh yeah, they want to know, do they need to give him last rights? Do they, you know, what is the situation in the case that he died? But that didn't really hit me until after the fact. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

It's cop humor. It's a way to tell my wife that I really didn't think anything was ever going to happen to me. And I thought I was being funny when I said, if one cop comes to the door, I'm hurt. If two cops come, I'm dead. It's actually a way of dealing with the psychological stress that something may happen to me, even though all cops think they're bulletproof in the end. It's not gonna happen to me, it's gonna happen to somebody else. And it was just my way of dealing with it in what I thought was a humorous way that most of your listeners will probably think, oh, why did he tell his wife that?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Oh no, no. I I think this audience actually will get it. It's gallows humor. And so, so no, I think they will get it. And I think that's insightful that you're you know you're self-aware that you know you're doing that because I think it happens almost automatically with a lot of young cops. Sure. Uh Michelle, I'll stick with you for another moment. Okay. When you got to the hospital, how much did they tell you about the extent of his injuries?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Funny enough, I mean, like I said, the the ride to the hospital, we were being escorted. I was in a police car and we ended up being escorted by other officers. And during that time, I didn't ask any questions. I think I just honestly sat there and prayed that he was going to be okay because I knew it was really bad. Um, when we arrived at the hospital, as we pulled up, there were police cars absolutely everywhere, like lining, you know, the whole parking lot. I saw media uh in the distance, and I got out of the car and there were cameras everywhere and police lining the hallways. As I walked into the emergency and they led me into a room, it was like something in a movie, it really was, because you had the um commissioner of the OPP and about four or five other senior officers in their white shirts all lined up, and they shook my hand as I uh walked in and they introduced themselves to me. And I just kept thinking, you know, what has happened to my husband? Where is he? I don't know these people. And then the last person in the line was uh his sergeant of the golden helmets, Lise Grenier. She hugged me and then a doctor came in, and that was when they told me what happened. And they said basically that Pete was um hit by a Canada goose and he had been knocked unconscious on the motorcycle and he had lost his leg. And at that point I said to them, is he going to live? And they said, We don't know, we're doing everything we can. Actually, what they actually what they said to me, first of all, was his spine's okay, his head's okay, his spine's okay, but unfortunately he's lost his leg and the other one is badly damaged. And I said to them, is he going to live? And they said, We don't know, we're gonna do everything we can.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

I didn't actually lose my leg. I knew where it was. Like now it anymore. It's not like it was missing, but it just was no longer a time.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

And actually, going along with that, with terms of cop humor, I remember in those initial moments, one of the officers who was there actually said, Oh, it must have been an American goose because a Canadian goose wouldn't have done that. And I and we kind of laughed. And I remember thinking to myself, because of course I was in shock at the time, I remember thinking to myself, how are we possibly talking about geese? Because it, of course, Pete and I had over the years on many occasions talked about the possibilities of what could happen as a police officer. And we had talked about the possibility of him being shot or being stabbed or hit by a truck because he did a lot of traffic enforcement. So when they started talking about him being hit by a bird, I thought this sounds like a bad joke. I don't understand. And it was the most outrageous thing, really. And the fact that this it really trivialized it and made me think, well, of course he's gonna be okay because this is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

He was only hit by a bird.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yes. So it couldn't possibly be that bad. But we were sure to find out that it was actually much, much worse.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

All right, Pete, let's transition over to you. I know that there is gonna be whole swaths of this that you don't personally have any memory of. However, you are the expert on being a motorcycle cop and on accidents and that kind of thing, and you certainly have learned what happened to you. So, from a cop's point of view, can you tell me what happened?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

To put it in perspective for you, my last logical memory that I have is the night before the accident. I went to dinner with some colleagues, and I came back to the barracks and I went to sleep. I don't remember getting up in the morning. Obviously, I did. I shaved, I got dressed, I put on my uniform, I loaded my gun, I walked across the headquarters, I got on the motorcycle, and I probably rode about 40 miles till the accident happened. I remember none of that. You were doing an escort? Yes, I was training people how to do VIP security. So what I'm told happened to me is I was probably doing 120 kilometers an hour, which is probably 70 miles an hour, and it was a divided highway with a ditch in the middle, some grass, but it was a highway, and apparently a goose either took flight or was landing from the grassy area, and I collided with it at highway speed, and I took it in the face. How big of a bird is that? 20 pounds? Canadian uh lots of Americans probably know what a Canada goose is, but it's probably 20 pounds and I hit it at that speed and it knocked me unconscious instantly, and what I'm told is I I stayed up with centrifugal force. I stayed up on the bike and I continued on a fair distance until I drifted into the guardrail, steel guardrail, and that's what severed my leg at the scene. Now I also understand that once I collided with the guardrail, I was thrown off the bike probably about 50 meters, and I actually landed between the grass strip between the two lanes. It was the only part of the highway that had a grass strip between it. And I'm told that it was wet from the night before, so there was some water in it, and it was spongy. So apparently that softened the blow. Don't remember any of it. And I was surrounded by it could have saved your life. Oh, it could have. It could have, but with my luck, I could have drowned in it too. You know what I mean? Um, I was with about 20 motorcycle riders, all buddies of mine, and I literally crashed within walking distance of the Barry Hospital, which is where I first went. Wow. Of course, I couldn't walk there now. Right. But uh, and luckily uh in Ontario, all officers carry tourniques on their vest, and they carry them in a black pouch that says T on it, and that's for tourniquet, but I joke it's for Tucker. Every time I'm talking to people, I say it's for Tucker. Because apparently the OPP handed a few out to guys to kind of try them before we buy 7,500 of them for everybody. And the story goes, I'm told that one guy had one on him and he threw it in his bike and he remembered he had it. They got that on me, and the doctor says that's the second thing that saved my life. First was the ditch, then was the tourniquet. But after that, the OPP just bought everybody tourniquet, and then everybody in the province ended up getting them too. So as bad as that day was, I had a lot of lucky things happen that saved me.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Did any of the officers writing with you in that group relate their thoughts about witnessing what happened? I'm I don't know that if you were in front or in back or or beside other officers, but I assume they witnessed it happen.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Some people saw it happen and they were good friends of mine, and some of them release received life-saving awards from the commissioner for saving me, which is a bit of a problem because every time I see these people I have to buy beer now. Because when somebody gets an award for saving your life, you're on the hook forever when it comes to beer. We didn't really talk about it. Me to them because I was in a state of mind on the stage for a while when I didn't want to talk about it. I had my own stuff going on, but they had some issues, and they talked to the OPP counseling, and I'm still in touch with these people, so we've kind of moved on.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

And I definitely um did have encounters with them after the fact. I mean, they were at the hospital every day for weeks, and I know in particular there were a few, I mean, they were very broken up about it. They were it was really, really tough on a few of them. Um, I remember them coming and, you know, seeing me while Pete was in a coma, and you know, a couple of the guys were really, really upset because I mean they were friends. Like this wasn't just a fellow officer, this was also their buddy. And they did save his life, but I think emotionally it absolutely took a toll on a number of them. I mean, his sergeant um actually ended up carrying, she carried his leg, which was left on the highway. She carried it onto a helicopter with him when he was brought to the hospital. She actually carried it in the hopes that they could reattach it. And unfortunately, they weren't able to do that because of the damage. But uh, yeah, it was pretty emotional and difficult for all of them, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

And I'm not trying to downplay the other officers' emotions. They were great people. I just wasn't there. Uh, Michelle was my eyes and ears for all of that. She knows what's going on. Yeah. I just don't remember. It's not a disrespect thing. I just don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

And it was also a near miss for them because motor units ride in formation. And if a bird explodes in Pete's face, that means it was within feet of hitting any of the others. Exactly. And apparently he crashed. And I mean, they all stayed on their bikes, right? Nobody else wrecked. Nobody else wrecked. So, but that but they were all in very close proximity to that bird exploding against your head and your crash that sent you flying and your bike wrecked and everything else.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

And in fact, I remember them telling me that they didn't actually know which of them it was, which of the officers it was that had crashed until they basically wiped the blood off of his name tag because they knew that somebody had crashed. I mean, it could have been any one of them, right? That this happened to. Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

No time to take a head count in that kind of emergency. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Back then we wore metal name tags. We don't wear metal name tags anymore, but they literally wiped the blood off the metal to realize it was me.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

The bird sounds like a bad joke. And the traumatic amputation is is just horrible. But what were Pete's injuries?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

So initially, yes, initially when you hear about this, the thing that was most prevalent was of course the fact that it was he had lost his leg. But in the end, once they actually got the bleeding stopped on that, um, obviously that's a very traumatic injury, but there were many other injuries that actually I don't want to say they were worse, but almost caused him to die as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

That's it was your left, it was Pete's left leg.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

It was his left leg.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

But that left leg, once they get the bleeding stopped, that left leg actually wasn't the chief concern.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

No. In fact, initially the chief concern was his brain because he ended up having two bleeds on his brain. We don't know if it was from the impact of the bird or if it was from flying through the air and landing in the ditch, and he landed quite a far distance from the bike when they found him. So we don't know about that, but he had two bleeds on his brain. So when he first actually woke up from the coma, which was two weeks later, he was very severely damaged. I mean, we will say that he was definitely not the person he is today. And I didn't know at first if that was going to be a permanent situation. We didn't know if that was waking up from a coma that was causing him to be altered. We didn't know if it was the medication. It was, you know, he was definitely not himself. And I was very much concerned that he was going to be damaged for the rest of his life. So that was probably, I would say, among the biggest concerns. Um, he also did tear three ligaments in his right leg. So while he lost his left leg, his right leg was also badly damaged, and actually was they had put it into an external brace, a steel brace.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

It was called an external fixator, and they basically drilled two screws into my femur and two screws into my shin, and it was an L-shaped brace that would bend at my knee if they allowed it to, but they were just trying to fixate it straight while my body tried to heal the injury. Now, apparently, that injury was so bad it required surgery under any other circumstances, except they were dealing with my severed leg and the other issues I had. So they just kind of put it aside. Like it was bad, but it wasn't the worst thing, so they put it aside.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

But managing those injuries on the right leg was critical so as not to eventually lose that leg.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Yes, absolutely. And then the other thing that happened, I think it was on the third day in the no, the second day in the coma. Basically, I had just gone home to tell our children. They had driven me home to St. Catharines to tell our children about Pete's state, um, that he had lost his leg. I was in the process of telling them that. And I got an emergency phone call from the um doctor saying that he was being rushed back into surgery because essentially he had what was called compartmental syndrome. Due to the crushing injuries, whether it be the tourniquet or whether it be the accident itself, we're not really sure, but his muscles were breaking down. It was poisoning his bloodstream, and it was causing what's called compartmental syndrome. They had to go in and do a fasciotomy. So that's when they put slits in his legs to open him up from the top of his essentially groin and on the outside of his thigh all the way down to his ankle of his right leg, and then what was remaining of his left leg. They did it on both sides in order to drain out the poison.

unknown 20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Um so now he's got open wounds.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Yes, now he had open wounds.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yet another thing to manage. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Exactly. And they were able to close them mostly. However, because of um the swelling and everything, they weren't able to close them fully. So now he has two pretty major skin grafts, one on the outside of his left thigh and one on his um right outer calf. And so those are some pretty major skin graphs that he has now.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

I would say the skin grafts are probably three by eight inches each, and one is on my, I call it my good leg, my right leg. One is on the inside of my right calf, and the other is on what's left of my left leg on the outside of my thigh, but they actually took the skin off my thighs, and I can see where they took it. It it uh it just the way it lightly scarred pink, where they took it from.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

And then in addition to that, actually, when that whole process was happening, um, his organs did start shutting down. So he actually went into kidney failure. And I walked back into the room one day and they were hooking him up to a machine, and I realized he was now on dialysis. And he ended up being on dialysis for about eight weeks um because his kidneys were no longer functioning. And we didn't know if that was going to be a permanent thing for the rest of his life. Or thankfully, um, he did eventually wean off that and his kidneys started the function did start coming back.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

The traumatically severed leg the mangled good leg, the brain injury from the impact of the bird and from being thrown. And then and uh various other smaller injuries, I'm sure, all over his whole body, I think.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

I think.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

I had gravel all over everywhere. Lots of smaller wounds.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Michelle, tell me about the feather.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

So around, I think it was around day five. So he was, he had had a ventilation tube that was helping him to breathe or allowing him to breathe. And at some point the doctor came to me and they said, we pulled a feather out of Pete's ventilation tube. And at that point, I feel like a terrible wife because I basically almost laughed. I was like, this can't get any more ridiculous. What do you mean you pulled a feather out of the tube? And I didn't really realize that when they said that, what they were actually saying is that there was a feather in his lungs. But I figured that out after. And so I said to the doctor, can I see the feather? And he kind of looked at me like I was a little bit crazy, but sure enough, they did bring me the feather the next day. And actually that feather, keeping in mind it's it's probably a quite a dirty bird that hit him, that feather was in his lungs. And I did realize that it was likely going to cause pneumonia, which it did. And then the pneumonia almost killed him, which like he went and he had pneumonia, which when you're on life support, definitely not a good thing. So he ended up almost dying from the pneumonia a few days later. But with regards to the feather, um, the OPP um ended up taking that and putting it into a locket for me. Um and the locket basically has a motorcycle and a police badge, the little feather, and it says blessed. And I used to wear the feather um all the time. Um and basically I always say when people ask me, why would you want the feather from the bird that almost killed him? I always say, Well, it's not about that. It really just represents Pete's determination and perseverance and everything, you know, that got him to where he is today.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Uh it's actually fairly common in military culture to keep a trophy of something that almost killed you. Yeah. Whether it's an unfired bullet of the of the enemy or a piece of shrapnel that hit you and and you survived. Uh I've heard several variations of that. Yes. I've got to think though that you're unique to have a feather.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yes, I think so. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

I I think what I'd like people to understand is what happened to me was horrible. It was very bad, but you gotta keep it in perspective. I often tell people that the worst day of my life and the best day of my life was the same day. The worst day is I lost my leg. The best part of that day is I lived. And Michelle's story about the uh dialysis machine that I was on for eight weeks, I hated every minute of it, couldn't stand it. But to put things in perspective, I got off the dialysis machine, I got control of my kidneys again, and now I can travel. My situation could be a lot worse than just losing my leg. I could be on a dialysis machine the rest of my life and not leave the area. And I also tell people, losing my leg is probably the twenty-fifth worst thing that could ever happen to me. And they're like, What do you mean? I go, Well, I could have lost two legs, I could be paralyzed, my wife could have lost a leg, my kids could have lost a leg. One of brain damage. Anything happening to my wife or kids instead of me is different. So, yes, losing my leg is horrible, but it's just the leg. I I lost it and I've I've moved on. I'm not trying to belittle it, I've moved on and things could be worse for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I'm going to cut this interview right here. Because even though Pete's injuries were extensive and the accident itself is so dramatic, the reason that I wanted to interview Pete and Michelle was more for the recovery story. Their faith, their persistence, their perseverance through a really long, difficult recovery is something that I think we need to hear. It's something I felt really spoke to me the first time I heard them tell their story. So next week we're going to pick up with Pete and Michelle talking about the recovery after the accident, still in the hospital, fighting through all of the life-threatening situations as they arose, and then rebuilding their life together. Next time on Hey Chaplin.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Those first couple years, I was not. I was not funny, I was not me. Yeah. I was very emotional. Like now I'm quite happy with who I am, but the first while it's very difficult to process.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Although, yes and no, because we gave talks. Um, we used to give talks even after the first year. We started to do talks for the OPP. And we would get up and we would talk, and Pete would joke. So there was a part of him that was able to make jokes of it and accept it. But I think when we were at home, some of the mourning was absolutely still happening. I mean, to this day. I mean, obviously, there is still a certain amount of sadness about certain things, but in general, yes, he's very well adjusted now. Um, and that over time there was healing that took place.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

The views expressed here are the personal views of the hosts and our guests, and do not necessarily represent the views of any law enforcement agency or its components. There have been a small number of people, both inside law enforcement and outside, who have been giving as little as $5 a month to help pay the expenses of this show. Thank you for helping me on this mission to encourage police officers. If you want to help this show reach more cops, chaplains, and other first responders around the world, please follow the link in the episode description to support the show. If you like this episode, please share it with a cop or someone who loves a cop. Thank you for listening to Hey Chaplain. And as always, let's pray for peace in our cities.