Grapevine Police motorcycle officer, RJ Hudson, lives with pain every day. It's a reminder of where he's been, and how far he's come since a crash that left him critically injured.
"October 19, 2017 at 10:19 a.m.," Senior Officer Hudson said, recalling the moment he cheated death on the job.
"I've never worked a crash involving a motorcycle where somebody was involved in a crash like mine and lived to tell about it."
Hudson was working traffic enforcement on State Highway 121 South near Hall-Johnson Road in Grapevine. He was catching up to a speeding driver when something fell off a truck, another driver swerved to miss it, and hit Hudson's motorcycle.
"I tumbled 297 feet," Hudson said. He remembers waking up in the hospital with 26 bones broken into hundreds of pieces, along with other injuries. "My answer from day one has been, I'm gonna get back on the motorcycle."
Riding a motorcycle is like breathing to Sr. Officer Hudson.
"I put 900 miles on my first motorcycle without ever leaving the backyard," he said. He was 10-years old at the time. That Honda 250 Enduro would be the first of 26 motorcycles Hudson has owned. "I just enjoy motorcycles."
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Hudson went through more than two years of rehabilitation, training, and testing to get back to full motorcycle officer duties with Grapevine Police.
"It does make me a little bit nervous getting up on the freeway amongst traffic, but I think it should have made me nervous before," Hudson said.
Hudson said he thinks his experience will make him a better officer at the next crash scene he investigates.
"After more than two decades as an officer... you lose a certain sense of sensitivity," Hudson said. "I think now, I might be a little more sensitive now."
The driver who hit Hudson wasn't charged, because that driver hit him while avoiding an obstruction on the highway.
