INJURED KENTUCKY TROOPER BEGINNING SLOW RECOVERY

Jonathan Whittaker saw the van barreling down the William H. Natcher Parkway in western Kentucky and swerve to the left, toward the median where the Whittaker and fellow state trooper Matt Wise stood after setting up a tire-deflation device in the roadway. The driver, Eric Johnson, tried to jam his speeding van between the two cruisers, only to run into Whittaker's vehicle. The van then struck Wise, sending the 27-year-old 60-feet down the roadway and knocking him unconscious.

"As soon as it happened, the first thing I thought was: 'Where's Matt? Where's he at?'" Whittaker said. "There he was, folded up in the median, and I thought there there's no way, no way, as fast as that guy was going, that he could be alive." Amazingly, Wise survived. It wasn't easy. The accident broke his right leg in seven places. He's undergone major surgery had a blood transfusion since the Jan. 12 incident, and likely won't be back on the job for eight months.

Wise, however, has no memory of the crash. Despite what will be a painful recovery, he has no regrets. "I'm glad it was me and not some innocent person," he said. "This is what we do. We go toward danger instead of running away from it. ... You never know what's going to happen, and you don't like to think about it. You just do it."

Johnson was arrested after trying to flee on foot and faces multiple felonies, including first-degree assault and first-degree wanton endangerment. Johnson said he is "horrified" by the incident and wishes he could apologize. "I would love to tell that man how sorry I am to his face," Johnson said. The actions surrounding the accident are a blur. A number of volunteer firefighters and concerned motorists pulled over to help before the ambulance arrived. A nurse used a box of Christmas ornaments to create a brace for his right leg until help arrived.

"It's been an eye-opening experience because you go so long without anything happening, (and) in a blink of an eye something can change a person's life for a long time," Whittaker said. Now relegated to a bed in his parent's home in Beaver Dam, Wise said he's been overwhelmed by the support of his friends, relatives and fellow troopers. "I sit around here and think, and I just feel there was something in the gap with me that night," Wise said. "I just feel like it wasn't my time to go."

The months ahead will be difficult, but Wise says he has a goal just as important as returning to work: making sure he can walk down the aisle when he marries fiancee Brooke Nation on June 7. "Everything happens for a reason, and I don't think there's anything different I could have done," Wise said. "You can sit here and think 'What if?' But I'm fortunate just to be here and appreciate every day."