COCOA, Fla. – A Cocoa police officer injured in a hit-and-run crash this week told News 6 he saw the Jeep coming and had three options: he could go left into oncoming traffic, go right into the procession, but he went straight and sacrificed himself.
"I had about, I would say, about three seconds to respond," Cocoa police Officer Rickford Leitch said.
Leitch used his bandaged arm to wipe away tears from his eyes as he described his willingness to sacrifice his life to save others. When the Jeep pulled in front of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle as he was part of a procession escorting the Traveling Vietnam War Memorial Wall to Melbourne, Leitch knew he had to act fast.
“If I turn left, I'm actually going into oncoming traffic and that would be fatal," Leitch said. "My next thought, turning right to avoid that vehicle, at the speed I'm going I would end up hitting the rear of one of the vehicles in the procession. So I made the decision -- I have to go for it.”
Leitch hit the driver's side of the Jeep and flipped several times in the air before he landed on the pavement.
Before the impact, Leitch, a traffic homicide investigator, made the decision to leap as high as he could to try to reduce the risk of his body slamming into the Jeep.
He said he those moments he spent in the air are a blur.
"I was told I flipped a few times in the air. I remember having flashes of the road in front of me as I slid because, apparently, I landed on my chest and I was sliding on my vest and I remember flashes of light as I see the road sliding before me," Leitch said.
He regained consciousness to find a crowd of his law enforcement brethren checking to see how badly he was injured. The driver of the Jeep, however, wasn't in the crown. Police said Norman Scott, 25, fled the scene of the crash.
"I was so glad to be alive I didn't care whether he was caught or not," Leitch said. "I was alive, that was and that is the big thing to me."
Scott was arrested Tuesday on multiple charges. Leitch has been in the hospital since Sunday's crash, but he is hoping to be able to go home and back to work soon.
"I'm glad it happened to me and not one of the other guys because if any decision was different the outcome would have been worse," Leitch said.