By Robbyn Brooks
The Northwest Florida Daily News
PENSACOLA, Fla. - A near-fatal car accident was the last thing on his mind.
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Mark Raiche was heading to a call early Sunday morning. There was a burglary in process. As he crested the top of a hill on a rural four-lane road, he saw headlights coming at him.
“I took the last minute to swerve to the right and miss a head-on collision and my car started to overturn,” Raiche recalled. “As it started to overturn, that’s the last thing I remember.”
Later, he heard more details. Raiche had rolled four times. He had to be extracted from his patrol car. He was hanging upside down, suspended only by his seat belt, and his engine compartment had caught fire by the time help arrived.
“I came back to just before they put me on the helicopter,” Raiche said.
As Raiche spoke softly from his hospital bed in Pensacola Monday afternoon, he said he had suffered the worst injuries he’d ever seen on the job. He has a tear in his liver and head and back injuries.
An alleged drunken driver had been traveling in the wrong direction on State Road 85 south of Crestview. As Raiche moved to avoid the SUV and his car began to flip out of control, the other driver didn’t stop, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
A witness to the accident followed the other driver for a short period and recorded his license plate number. The driver was 33-year-old Scott Allen Brace, a lieutenant with the Ocean City-Wright Fire Department. He was arrested at his home and charged with DUI and leaving the scene of a crash with injury.
Brace’s arrest report stated that he confirmed on a taped interview that he was driving his 2003 Chevy Tahoe from Fort Walton Beach back to his home in Crestview during the “early morning hours.” Brace also stated he’d been drinking alcohol. The deputy who arrested Brace noted he had “glassy and watery eyes and a flushed red face.” Brace mumbled and slurred his words, the deputy reported.
A breath exam showed Brace had a blood alcohol content of 0.13. The legal limit is 0.08.
“I know he’s been incarcerated and why,” said Randy Brown, the fire department’s chief, “but at this point it’s not in our hands to do anything. It’s strictly a law enforcement matter. When law enforcement is done, we’ll look at it from there.”
The accident happened about 6 a.m. Raiche’s pregnant wife, Jennifer, was home with their two young children.
At about 7 a.m., the doorbell rang. When Jennifer answered, her parents, a deputy and another Sheriff’s Office representative were there.
“That’s always been known as a worst-case scenario,” Jennifer recalled, her voice shaking a little. “That was the first thing I thought of. Something had happened and my husband had been killed.”
Jennifer is grateful her first thoughts weren’t true.
“It is in the back of the mind of every spouse. It doesn’t matter if it’s the husband working or the wife working,” Jennifer said. “There are so many others that are not as lucky.”
Raiche is recovering at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola. He was able to open his eyes Monday. They were swollen shut Sunday, Jennifer said, and he was relying on voices to tell him who was with him and what was happening.
“I’ve got some pain in my back and a lot of bumps and bruises,” Raiche said, quickly adding that he feels lucky.
Raiche also said he thinks it’s a little ironic that he could have been killed by a drunken driver since DUI arrests have been a large focus of his 13-year career with the Sheriff’s Office. He’d even spent 19 months on a special DUI project.
He said being able to relay the harm that driving drunk can do is a positive aspect of his accident and injuries.
“I think it’s a wake-up call. It brings it back to reality for everyone,” Raiche said. “It’s real. It’s real people that get affected by it.”
Jennifer said the community should look out for her husband to be back on the job soon, despite the seriousness of his injuries.
“He won’t stay still for long,” she said. “He’s irritated about being in the bed for this long already, but he knows it’s for the best.”
Copyright 2008 The Northwest Florida Daily News