By David Gambacorta
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — He wasn’t going to survive.
That cold, crushing thought crept into the minds of nearly everyone who gazed at the hideously swollen, bloodied face of Officer Richard Hayes last June 28.
An alleged drunk driver had exploded like a mortar round into a car that Hayes and his partner, Officer George Higginson, had been inspecting in Frankford in the middle of the night.
Hayes got the worst of it. His jaw and cheek bones had been shattered, along with a couple of ribs and vertebrae. Even worse damage was found in X-rays of his brain, which showed bleeding in three places.
Higginson didn’t get off easy, either. He was tossed through the air like a rag doll in the crash, and needed more than 200 stitches to close jagged gashes on his face.
Hayes, though, “was unrecognizable,” said his wife, Maria. “Later on, we heard the word around the hospital was that he wasn’t going to make it that night.”
But somehow, he made it through that harrowing first night, when minutes felt like hours and his friends and families braced themselves for the worst.
He made it through the months of rehabilitation, relearning how to walk and talk.
On Monday, the first anniversary of his brush with death, Richard Hayes was at work, in uniform and able to look back on his whole improbable story - including the weird twist about the fake priest who comforted his family during their darkest moments.
“It’s amazing I lived through that,” said Hayes, 29. “You think you’re invincible, but your life can end at any time.”
The eight-year veteran of the force has no memory of what happened to him last summer.
“It’s just a story that is told to me,” he said. “The last thing I can remember is going to the zoo with my family a week before.”
Police have said that on the night of the crash, Hayes and Higginson arrested Edwin Alizea and his cousin Jose Marrero for smoking pot after stopping Alizea in Frankford on suspicion of DUI. The cousins were cuffed and sitting in the back of a cop car while Hayes and Higginson inspected Alizea’s red Geo Prizm about 1:30 a.m. on Aramingo Avenue near Church Street.
Alizea, who was later sentenced to three days to six months in prison, told police that a Honda Ridgeline truck came speeding onto the scene and smashed into the Prizm, which Hayes was leaning into.
Police charged the driver of the truck, John Cusick, 20, of Bristol, Bucks County, with aggravated assault while driving under the influence.
Investigators determined that Cusick had marijuana and Valium in his system at the time of the crash. He has a trial date set for Sept. 7.
Hayes was bounced around the inside of the crumpled Prizm like a pinball.
He was rushed to Aria Health’s Frankford campus, where doctors prepared his family and fellow cops for the worst.
“We thought almost immediately that he wasn’t going to survive. People were walking around with such despair,” said Inspector Daniel Castro, then the commander of North Philadelphia’s 24th District, where both cops worked.
The 24th District was still reeling from the death of two of its own, Sgts. Stephen Liczbinski and Timothy Simpson, both of whom were killed while on duty in 2008.
Hayes’ family, meanwhile, was confronted with a familiarly grim feeling.
His father’s brother, Officer Robert Hayes, was shot and killed in the line of duty in June 1993, when Richard was 12.
“It brought back all those emotions,” said Linda Hayes, Richard’s mother. “You live with that fear, day in and day out, as a parent or wife of a person in uniform. It’s the most dreaded call you can ever get.”
While Hayes’ family prayed for a miracle, they were comforted by a slim, 27-year-old “priest” from Northeast Philadelphia named Paul Schlear.
“I was so happy he was there,” Linda Hayes said. “My husband was having a real tough time dealing with our situation, and he was very comforting.”
But a family friend was suspicious; something wasn’t right about Schlear. The friend was right: Schlear was just a strange little man pretending to be a priest.
They later learned he had a history of pretending to be other things - a firefighter and a politician’s deputy chief of staff, among them.
Schlear was arrested for criminal trespass and false impersonation, and sentenced to community service.
The family got over the bizarre intrusion and focused on Hayes’ recovery. He woke up after a month in a medically induced coma and realized he had to relearn how to stand, speak and take care of himself. Hayes said he thought of his 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter as he went through the grueling rehab.
“I wanted to be there for my kids,” he said. “I also still wanted to be a cop, out on the street.”
By the spring, he was back on his feet and ready to get back on the force. He accepted a transfer to the Homeland Security Bureau, where he responds to hostage negotiations and emergencies at the airport.
Higginson, 26, returned to work at the 24th District in March. “We can sit together, think back and laugh because we’re both OK,” he said.
“I just look at it like, thank God I’m here, still able to put on a uniform,” Hayes said.
“Hopefully something like that never happens again, you know?”
Copyright 2010 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC