GREENFIELD — Three Greenfield Police Department officers wasted no time jumping in and helping a driver in distress following a single-car crash where the vehicle flipped upside down and submerged in a water-filled ditch shortly after midnight Sunday, Dec. 18.
The accident happened near W. Green Meadows Drive and N. Broadway Street, Greenfield, the report stated. The three officers first on the scene — Sgt. Justin Jackson, Ptlm. Blake Crull and Ptlm. Caleb Freeman — are credited with getting the man out of the car, which was upside down, in a creek with the unconscious man, trapped, hanging from his seat belt in a dire situation.
Greenfield Police Department Ptlm. Blake Crull
Greenfield Police Department Sgt. Justin Jackson
Greenfield Police Department Ptlm. Caleb Freeman and his dog Ace.
Deputy Chief Chuck McMichael said the vehicle was westbound on Green Meadows Drive and didn’t stop at Broadway Street. The car continued off the roadway and came to rest upside down in the water-filled ditch.
“We won’t get a condition update from the hospital, but the driver was transported in critical condition,” McMichael said. “A witness on scene did say the car was going about twice the speed limit on Green Meadows Drive.”
The rescue was a group effort by several of GPD B-Squad night shift officers and good Samaritans, McMichael said, but he specifically credited Jackson, Crull and Freeman for helping get the man out and to medics who arrived quickly on the scene and immediately rendered aid.
Despite the frigid temperatures, the officers worked quickly, the report stated, to get the male who was hanging upside down from his safety belt as he was bleeding from the head.
“Once we got the male out of the vehicle, he had a pulse but abnormal breathing,” the report stated.
