Officer dives out of harm's way

So here's one of those things you hope will never happen to you if you're a cop: HPD officer Ricky Rojas Garcia was responding to a traffic accident on I-10 near downtown yesterday morning, and he ended up having to dive over a guardrail to avoid being hit by a speeding truck.

It started when Garcia used his patrol car to block traffic on I-10 near Taylor Street until three chain-reaction accidents were cleared. But one pickup driver came along at about 10:30 a.m., didn't notice Garcia's car — because, hey, it's just a police car, right? — and smashed into the back of it. Garcia saw the truck coming and jumped over the guardrail at the side of the road; fortunately, the drop wasn't steep, and Garcia walked away with either a twisted ankle, according to KPRC, or a sprained knee, according to the Chronicle (KHOU goes with minor leg injuries). In any case, we're sure he didn't actually walk away. That's just a figure of speech.

Garcia was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital, and the truck driver and her two kids were also checked out, but they weren't seriously injured. [KHOU has raw video of the accident scene, if you're interested.]

Photo from flickr user Paul Schreiber