Cobb officers leap from bridge to avoid wreck

By Marcus K. Garner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two Cobb County lawmen had a choice to make Friday morning: jump off a bridge or risk being crushed by an out-of-control PT Cruiser.

As metro Atlanta police departments were inundated with weather-related accident calls, a Cobb sheriff's deputy and an off-duty Cobb police officer were added to the number.

The Cobb deputy slid into the wall of a Barrett Parkway overpass in his squad car Friday around 9:45 a.m.

Cobb County police spokesman Officer Joe Hernandez said the off-duty Cobb cop pulled over to the shoulder to help the fellow lawman. But as the two stood between the Cobb officer's pick-up truck and the wall of the overpass, a third vehicle got into trouble.

"The PT Cruiser lost control, bounced off the wall and hit the pickup," Hernandez said. "Both the deputy and the off-duty cop jumped over the wall and fell about 20 feet to the ground below to keep from being crushed."

Both lawmen were taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital with minor injuries, including sprains and fractures, police said.

How well are police handling the barrage of emergency calls?

Cobb police have received roughly 300 calls for wrecks since about 4 p.m. Thursday, and have responded to about 150 of them. The volume of calls and icy roads have made it impossible for officers to reach every call.

Cobb police are asking people with minor wrecks to wait until streets are clearer to call in for reports.

"It's not that citizens are being blown off," Hernandez said. "We've just been inundated. And some of these roads we can't get to.  If we can take a report over the phone, we will."

Here's what other counties reported:

• DeKalb reported that officers responded to all of the nearly 150 calls made between midnight Thursday and 2 p.m. "We have to respond to all the calls," DeKalb police spokesman Jason Gagnon said.

• Gwinnett police sent officers to 131 accidents between midnight and 11 a.m. with 16 injuries, police said."Many of these reports were found to actually consist of a single car that had merely left the roadway and entered a ditch or residential yard without causing any damage to either vehicle or property," Gwinnett police spokesman Brian Kelly said.

• "We responded to all of them," Atlanta police spokesman officer Otis Redmond said of the 229 accident calls received between 5 p.m. Thursday and 11 a.m. Friday.

In each case, officers said the deluge of auto accident calls far outpaces the norm.

-- Staff reporters Rhonda Cook, Mike Morris and Ralph Ellis contributed to this story.