By Christian Boone and Rick Badie
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Doctors gave Cobb County police officer Freddie Norman less than a 1 percent chance of surviving the night after a drunken driver rammed his patrol car nearly 21 years ago.
Norman, 45, died Saturday at Wellstar Cobb Hospital from complications arising from injuries suffered in the April 1988 accident, said Cobb police spokesman Nathan McCreary.
When Norman was released from the hospital after seven months in recovery, he was able to move only a toe and the little finger of his right hand. But he persevered, eventually communicating through a computer.
“He liked to push your buttons, in a fun way,” his brother Kevin Norman said. “Sometimes he’d get frustrated, but he’d always turn it around into something he could laugh about.”
In 1998, Freddie Norman received the Blue Star Award, given to officers injured in the line of duty. Eight years later, his daughter Christi Norman, now 24, was sworn in as an officer with the Austell Police Department.
Norman’s funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday at Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta. He also is survived by his wife, Faith, and daughters Kim, 26, and Hope, 12.
Copyright 2009 Atlanta Journal-Constitution