Officer Down: A Story Of Recovery and Resilience

00:04
Brent Hinson
Between the lines with virtual Academy. We all have a story to tell. Hello and welcome to another edition of between the Lines with Virtual Academy. We are a podcast going beyond the badge to allow members of law enforcement, public safety and first response a place to tell their stories and also talk about the cases that have impacted their lives.

00:23
Brent Hinson
How you doing? I’m your co-host, Bren Hinson, and if you’re listening, the week this episode is released, happy Thanksgiving to you. And just like we did last year during this week of thanks, where we spotlighted the story of Victor Lauria back in episode 28, we wanted to highlight a story that helps bring focus and meaning into this holiday season. And you know, Michael Warren, it’s easy to sit back and gripe about all the small things in our lives and completely ignore all these really big, great things we’re blessed with in life. But I think a lot of us are guilty of that. I’m trying to get better at recognizing all the good things and stop griping as much.

00:59
Michael Warren
We’ve become so inwardly focused that we often lose sight of the bigger picture.

01:04
Brent Hinson
We do.

01:05
Michael Warren
And I’m very fortunate. You talked about Vic. Got to spend an evening with Vic a few days ago, and I’m reminded how positive people that have gone through bad things can be. And I wish I were more like that. I really do. I recognize that as a weakness of mine. Talking to people like our guests today, I’m hoping is going to help me get to where I want to be.

01:26
Brent Hinson
Well, I’ve gone through some rough situations myself, and when you come on the other side of that, you do have a different appreciation for things. And I think hearing our guest today speak interviews, I think she has kind of the same mindset. I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I think that’s kind of where we’re going today, is to look inside to know.

01:44
Michael Warren
Brent We’ve alluded to it several times on the podcast. We keep bringing people on that make me question and challenge me to better. Mike. The way that he handled his family and protected him from what he did. Victor and then our guest today, it’s a humbling experience talking to these folks, and I can’t wait to hear what our guest has to say.

02:09
Brent Hinson
Well, our guest has a remarkable story to tell. She got her starts back at the age of 18 as a member of the US Air Force before making the transition into a career in law enforcement, first as a dispatcher in Pulaski County, Arkansas, then as a police officer in Little Rock before joining the Bryant, Arkansas Police Department five years ago in October of 2018. Fast forward from there. One year after starting the Bryant, Arkansas Police Department job, she was finding herself in kind of a intense situation where some might call it an ordinary wellness check. Officer Samantha Hodgkin found herself being fired upon in an event that left her in the hospital with severe injuries just days before Christmas in 2019. Now nearly four years separated from that encounter, she joins us today to tell her story.

03:02
Brent Hinson
It’s our pleasure to welcome Officer Samantha Hodgkin to the podcast. Thank you so much for taking time for us. I know you’re an SRO, and we’re trying to work this in so we can hear from you, and it’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

03:16
Samantha Hodgson
I appreciate you guys having me.

03:18
Michael Warren
So as we’re recording this, Veterans Day is just a couple of days away. So happy Veterans Day to you. Thank you for your service. I will say that you are smarter than a lot of folks we’ve had on the podcast, including me, that went Air Force instead of some of the other ones. We might as well get out of the way, okay? Because this time of year, the airwaves, the social media accounts, are dominated by the Marine Corps with their birthday coming up here, so. Oh, happy birthday, you devil dogs. Okay, let’s get it done now. Let us get back to the funny memes and get away from all that stuff there. So you joined the Air Force right out of school, huh?

04:01
Samantha Hodgson
Yep, pretty much. I did a couple of college classes right out of high school, and I’m like, I can’t sit still. So I signed up for the Air Force. I went in as security forces, so also known as MP for all the other branches and whatnot. I was stationed in Alaska, in Anchorage. So it was very cold, but it was definitely beautiful.

04:28
Michael Warren
My dad is an Air Force veteran. He served back in the. He grew up indiana, and his first duty station was Fort Yukon, Alaska, which is 8 miles above the Arctic Circle. And it was a very small contingent. He said it was the best year of his life, probably because he got away from everything that he knew, literally, but he had a blast. So where’d you go after Alaska then.

04:50
Samantha Hodgson
I separated in Alaska just because I wanted to be there for my daughter, because I unexpectedly got pregnant, and I found out I was pregnant when I was getting ready to deploy. So it’s one of those dang it moments because I really wanted to, and. But everything happens for a reason. We were in Alaska, and then my husband at the time got stationed in Okinawa, Japan. So we moved from Alaska to Japan, one extreme to the other.

05:24
Michael Warren
He’s Air Force. He was Air Force as.

05:26
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah.

05:27
Michael Warren
Yeah. Because we also know that Okinawa has a very big Marine Corps contingent. And recognizing the Marine Corps, they always.

05:36
Samantha Hodgson
Had us, everybody on lockdown because they don’t know how to act off base.

05:39
Michael Warren
Yes. That’s why we can’t have nice things.

05:43
Samantha Hodgson
Exactly.

05:44
Brent Hinson
Seriously, it’s like between the lines. True Hollywood stories right here.

05:50
Michael Warren
Sometimes I feel bad about it, but they bring it on themselves. Don’t make yourself such an easy target. Exactly at what point then did you get into civilian law enforcement? How did that come about?

06:03
Samantha Hodgson
Well, it sounds cliche and probably people always say everybody’s got something to say about it, but literally, it was a childhood dream. I wanted to be a cop no matter what. After we got stationed here in Little Rock, well, we found out were getting orders to Little Rock. I’m like, bet we’re going to fill out the application while in Japan, so when we get here, we can just start the know. In my mind, that’s exactly what happened. Literally filled out the application while overseas. Started with Little Rock PD. Did them for quite some time, like, literally learned a lot. I was downtown midnights and day shift midnights, day shift midnight. So learned a lot, saw a lot. And I figured, let’s separate from law enforcement for a minute. Go see the other side of the radio.

06:56
Samantha Hodgson
Went over to Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office, worked 911 dispatch for two years. And golly, talk about an eye opener that in my whole career was a huge eye opener.

07:10
Michael Warren
People that haven’t worked in this field, they really have no idea what it’s like sitting a console in dispatch. It is a completely different animal.

07:22
Samantha Hodgson
Oh, yeah.

07:23
Michael Warren
So when I first started, I started in dispatch. I’ve said it before on this podcast. One of the things that I struggled with was the lack of closure. You send somebody on a call, but you don’t get to see the end. And it’s like starting to sing a song, and then the song just turned off. You never get to finish the song. And that was hard for me.

07:42
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah, there was quite a few calls that I handled. People trying to commit suicide or overdosing and that sort of thing. And you can hear coming from work in the street, going to the room, the dispatch room, like being confined. I want to go to that call. I want to go help that person. I don’t want to just talk to them and try to talk them down or whatever. I want to go see it all the way through. But that was a challenging thing, though.

08:12
Michael Warren
God bless those that sit behind the console that are able to do that job in a way, because literally what they do is life saving. That’s not me. I couldn’t do that. I needed to be on the other end of things. So you start off in Little Rock, you switch to the other side of the console. What drove you to say, you know what? This is important work, but it’s not work that I should be doing. What happened at that point, I always.

08:38
Samantha Hodgson
Knew it coming into it that my ultimate goal is law enforcement, the street, like, hands on type stuff. But like I said, it was just one of those things I felt like I needed to learn. And just sitting there shift after shift, like, I grew a great relationship with most of the deputies because I’m originally from New York, and down here in the south, they talk very slow.

09:06
Michael Warren
Coming from a Yankee.

09:09
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah. I would talk too fast or I would be too loud, or they would just misinterpret my tone.

09:17
Brent Hinson
How many times did you hear, bless your heart?

09:20
Samantha Hodgson
Every day.

09:21
Michael Warren
All right, this is Samantha. See, you and I went in opposite directions. Okay. Because I came up north from down south, and I can remember sitting there dispatching a fire run. So I need you to respond on a tire fire. And they get on there. It was a shared frequency. Right. What did you say? There’s a vehicle ablaze.

09:43
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah, that’s exactly what they want. A couple of them would give me grief, but I would just keep going back and forth with them. Just playful banter. I guess you could say they realize that I’m very easy going, and that’s just how I am. And we’re not talking fast right now because I have braces and a whole lot of metal in my mouth. Because of the story, I’m speaking very slow, like I’m getting into the southern mode.

10:10
Michael Warren
So you said, you know what? I’ve got to change. How did that change come about? What was the process for you there?

10:17
Samantha Hodgson
I would say it was a super easy process because I knew. I already knew in my heart what I wanted to do. And one of the nights were on night shift, and we had a lull moment. I was just looking around at cities, different areas that were close by, and not only for me, but for, my know, schools, communities, sports, that sort of thing. That’s another thing I was looking at. And Bryant had everything in my mind. I was looking like, the kids got a good school. She can grow up in a small little town. Well, it’s grown a lot, but just a smaller know. It’ll be more homey, I guess. And that’s kind of why Brian came to.

11:01
Michael Warren
Little Rock is a pretty good sized agency, and so you’ve got experience there. Sometimes people struggle coming from busier, larger departments and going to smaller departments. Did you experience any of that? Or did you say, you know what? This right here, this is where I was meant to be.

11:18
Samantha Hodgson
That’s kind of how I felt, honestly. Like, yeah, having that go constantly was eye opening. You learned a lot. Like, in literally an hour, you could learn things you never knew existed on planet Earth in Little Rock. But over here, it was like I had that go experience. I knew how to gather everything I needed in such a quick time that coming over here, it was easy. It was more like, okay, I already got all that down before I even got to the call type thing. It’s a little challenging, but mainly easy.

11:51
Michael Warren
When you find your place. You know what I mean? It’s a comforting feeling that also has its drawbacks, because when we get comfortable as human beings, and it’s not just policing, it’s human beings, when we get comfortable, we start cutting corners and we start doing things differently. It’s something we have to guard against. But the incident that we’re going to talk about today, before we get into the details, what was the date that it occurred?

12:19
Samantha Hodgson
December 23, 2019.

12:22
Michael Warren
I’m going to run a story by you here, and you tell me if you have similar. Have had similar thoughts. I can remember working one of my, before I retired, one of the last Christmas days. Okay. In most agencies, there is an expectation that those days around Christmas are going to be slower than others. You might have more traffic accidents because people are going to. Up here in north, we get bad weather, snow and stuff like that. You don’t necessarily expect the high stress, danger type calls. And I remember right out of the gate, Christmas Day. I mean, we’re sitting in briefing, 07:00 a.m. We get unresponsive mail in a car, in front of a house. And so we run on it. Me and another guy, we run on it, and it’s an overdose. We’re working hard. We brought the guy back.

13:18
Michael Warren
But in reflection, I thought about my mindset, probably wasn’t where it would be if it had been January 15 as opposed to December 25 because of that holiday season, because of the way that we’re built as human beings. Have you ever experienced that type thing where it’s like Thanksgiving Day, those type things, you go into work with a different mindset than perhaps you would on a quote unquote regular day.

13:45
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah.

13:46
Michael Warren
So on December 23, what shift were you working?

13:50
Samantha Hodgson
So at that time were switching. We would do like three months day shift, three months night shift. So that was the first night shift rotation and I think it was six P to six A. So it was wintry night, very cold.

14:10
Michael Warren
You’re thinking about Christmas, you’re trying to get things ready, but you’re having to work. And what time during your ship did this incident occur?

14:18
Samantha Hodgson
Before going into work? My daughter and I were literally wrapping Christmas presents and put them under the tree and whatnot. And at the time I was a single mom, so she was living her best life wrapping her own presents. She knew what she was getting.

14:34
Michael Warren
But that’s important to point out though, because as somebody in the first responder field, an hour before you’re working, you’re literally wrapping presence. Your mind is in a completely different place and people talk about flipping the switch. There is no flipping the switch. It’s a matter of transitioning, not an instantaneous thing. So you come in there, you wrap in presents. Now we got to go to work. Okay. How did the shift start out for you? Was it a normal day for you?

15:03
Samantha Hodgson
For the most part. I’m only 5ft tall and all the guys are like 6162 Big boy. I’m like the little sister of the entire group. We were literally before the call at come and go getting coffee because what cop doesn’t drink coffee? So one of the guys, he’s like, how many steps do you take? When I take one step I’m like, what? So of course were gauging how many little runs I have to do in order for their one big gaping step so that we’re literally just trying to enjoy the night. The start of the twelve hour shift. At the time I was 122 was my call sign and I was the South Unit. So the interstate is like our dividing factor. Like anything south of the Interstate north, you’re responsible for it. And me being me, even my husband and my daughter.

15:57
Samantha Hodgson
And everybody will tell you she follows the rules too damn much. So I get a call, it’s a suicidal subject. And I hit my lights and sirens and I’m on my way down, Paul and butt down past the high school and going to the call. And that’s kind of where, you know how they say your gut instinct, it triggered like something was like, okay, we got to tread lightly on this one. They embed in you in the military and training of all kinds. Like no call is the same yeah, it’s got the same title, suicidal subject, private property, accident, disturbance, whatever. It’s got the same title, but it’s never the exact same situation. So I get there to the address that the mother gave me initially gave dispatch the wrong address.

16:52
Michael Warren
It’s one of those things, and we’ve talked about it on our podcast before. Dispatch plays a very big role in officer safety, and yet they’re some of the most undertrained people in the law enforcement profession. So they get this call of a possible suicidal subject. They send you to an address that was given to them by the mother. People say, well, you know, question everything. Well, you can’t question everything. You would never get anything done if you question every single thing that came your way. So in your mind, you had to be thinking, well, this is where it’s going to be. And that plays a direct role in the way in which you respond and the way you handle it, doesn’t it?

17:35
Samantha Hodgson
Yes, it does, because I’m going to that address. I knew exactly where it was, and that’s where I was going. I didn’t think anything past that because I’m figuring, okay, if Mom’s calling in, she knows where her son lives.

17:50
Michael Warren
If anybody knows, his mom knows. Mom knows those things.

17:54
Samantha Hodgson
Exactly. Yeah. So we go to the address, and of course I wake up a guy who just got done with his little friend’s Christmas dinner, and he was drunk as a skunk. He was trying to take a nap. Just got done eating Christmas dinner with his buddies, and he was trying to take a nap.

18:11
Michael Warren
So you’re dispatched on the call, you go there, obviously not the guy. We can’t just walk away. You’ve got to do a little bit further investigation. How did you go about getting the correct location?

18:23
Samantha Hodgson
So, thankfully, the corporal at the time, who’s now a sergeant, he lived in that area and knew the apartment manager, contacted them. He did a little digging. I’m on the computer trying to figure out if this guy has a different address listed or however we can find it, because, I mean, let’s be honest, cops are a little nosy. We got to figure stuff out. So were digging, and thankfully, we found it. We found the address, found the guy, and me being me, we’re like, okay, let’s go. So I’m leading the way then. The corporal had a new guy to us, not to law enforcement, but to us, I guess, the new guy for the night. So they were coming. And plus, no matter what call I would go on, there would be another guy there with me just because like I said, blue family.

19:17
Samantha Hodgson
And I’m sure you guys have said it before, it’s a thing. It’s a real life thing. Like, we’re with each other more than our families sometimes. And you just grow that bond of familyness, and it’s strong. So somebody was always coming with me to a call, which I appreciated every day, all day, and I still do. So we figure it out and we head up to the apartment. It was a second story apartment on the backside, so it was very dark. They didn’t have very good lighting and stuff. But that’s why we have these handy dandy flashlights that light up the world. So we head up, we go up there to the apartment. And in my mind, it’s not routine, obviously.

20:03
Samantha Hodgson
We have to adapt to every call that we go to, depending on how serious, how minute, just depending on everything, we have to adapt to it. Like a little chameleon, I guess you could say. We get up there and he’s got Christmas decorations and a little bit of decorations on his door. So I’m like, okay, he’s probably got a kid, whole family. He’s just having a bad night. And in the military, and through all of my training, the door, any door, is the fatal funnel. Never stand in the middle of the door. You always stand to the side of it, as far away as you can get, within reason, depending on everything going on.

20:46
Samantha Hodgson
And so me being me and the way I process it in my mind, if I’m in front of a door and I already know it opens in, I go to the opposite side of the door handle. So when it opens in, if I’m over here, I can see it, everything as it opens, like, what’s right there. So in my mind, that’s how it works for me. I did my thing. I went to the right side of the door, and the other officer stood to the left. And another thing they teach during training is sometimes females, if you’re going on a call with a male, they don’t want to talk to a female, they’d rather talk to a male, and then vice versa, they don’t want to talk to a guy, they’d rather talk to a girl.

21:29
Samantha Hodgson
So it crossed my mind, but I didn’t really think too far into it, like, when we first got there. But after standing on the right side of the door, I kind of pushed something just told me, push that out of the way. So I pushed his decorations closer to the balcony because, like I said, we’re on the second floor, so there’s, like, a little guardrail that I just pushed all of his decorations over to. And of course I knock with my flashlight because it’s just more extension away from the door. And it’s loud. Better than the guys say. I have tiny hands, so the flashlight will be heard better than my hands, probably.

22:08
Brent Hinson
Listen, if you’ve ever had the police knock at your door, you know the police are knocking at your door.

22:14
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah. So we knock on the door. I think I knocked about a dozen times. And then I got know we did our know. Bryant, police Officer Hodgson. What can I help you with? What’s going on? I get called every name you can think of, names I didn’t know I had at birth. So definitely learned something new about myself.

22:35
Michael Warren
All our mind is looking for is a coherent story. And you’ve laid out this story that makes perfect sense. You see, that’s the time of year, the decorations, the time of day. All these things are leading you. Plus the fact that dispatch told you that mom said that he’s suicidal. Suicidal means that I am potentially going to do harm to myself, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to do harm to others. So all these things are playing into the way that you respond. Your mind has to go with incomplete information. You have to make decisions off of incomplete information. And it sounds like you handled it exactly the way that I would have handled it. Because too often I think in situations, people try to armchair quarterback and money more and more quarterback what was done or what wasn’t done.

23:24
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah, I heard plenty of stories of my own. Story.

23:27
Michael Warren
Yeah, it’s the reasonable officer on the scene at the time. That’s what the measure has to be on the decisions that were made. So you get called a bunch of names, which is both entertaining and concerning at the time.

23:43
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah, red flags are popping up everywhere.

23:45
Michael Warren
Okay, so what happened next, then?

23:48
Samantha Hodgson
So I look at the other officer on the left side of the door. I’m like, hey, maybe he wants to talk to you. And obviously that leans back to, he’s a guy. He probably doesn’t want to talk to a female right now. Maybe it’s Christmas. They’re fighting over gifts or money or whatever. So he doesn’t want to hear from a female. The other officer Hayes things. He knocked on the door, of course. He got called a couple names, and then he knocked again on the door handle to kind of make it more, I guess, hey, open the door type thing. We’re trying to check on you. Because in my mind, I’m like, I just want to help this guy. It’s Christmas. Let’s just make sure you’re good, and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll get out of your hair.

24:27
Samantha Hodgson
All I need to know is that you are okay. If you want help, I’ve got it for you. If you don’t want it, then I’ll keep it for somebody else. That’s all my whole goal was anyway. So Officer Hastings, he knocks on the door. And all of a sudden, I hear a very loud bang. Sounded like just a very loud explosion. And all of a sudden, I open my eyes, and I see the guy is literally looking down at me. So Corporal McCabe was in the stairwell. Thankfully, he was behind the brick pillar. And he didn’t catch any of them that I know of. And then, you know, he came from the left and then the right. And then all I remember thinking was, I dropped a big old F bomb.

25:13
Samantha Hodgson
Definitely said the F bomb, because I knew exactly what happened, just didn’t know where. And so I see them looking down, and then I hear Corporal McCabe. He’s like, officer down. Shots fired. Shots fired. And then I hear him say, get her. Get her, get her. And he’s, of course, talking Hastings. So I remember just putting my arms up, and then they wrapped me up and pulled me down, like, literally drugged me down two flights of stairs. I don’t remember the stairway down, but I remember when they laid me at the bottom of the stairs, and they’re trying to figure out where he is, like, making sure I’m not needing to put a tourniquet or something on, like, doing, like, a check, a whole check. They’re like, okay, grab her. And he’s like, Corporal McCabe. He was like, are you okay?

26:02
Samantha Hodgson
I said, I’m okay. Let’s go. Because I couldn’t get up. I knew I couldn’t get up because I was dizzy. Of course. I put my arms up again, grabbed them. Grabbed my arms. They drugged me down the sidewalk. I remember pushing my feet. You know how you push, like, if you’re scooting your butt along the sidewalk or something? I remember doing that to help them go faster, to get away, just in case they had to return fire, in case he comes out again trying to fire. We get to the parking lot, and that’s where Officer Hastings, she had quick clock gauze in his vest, which I have now. And he put it on my neck, because at that time, again, I didn’t know where I was hit. I knew I was hit. I just didn’t know where. And I kept going.

26:48
Samantha Hodgson
In and out, I remember on Planet Earth, I guess you could say, and then falling asleep.

26:54
Michael Warren
So I was in and out, understanding. You didn’t know where you were hit?

26:58
Samantha Hodgson
No, I had no idea.

26:59
Michael Warren
How long do you think, and I know that you were going in and out. How long do you think it took from the time that you heard that explosion until they got you out on the sidewalk?

27:09
Samantha Hodgson
I want to say at least a good minute, a very long minute, because they moved quick. Because I did review all of the body mic footage, all the video car camera, because at the time, we didn’t have the actual body cameras. We had just the body mic.

27:25
Michael Warren
Okay.

27:26
Samantha Hodgson
We were in the process of transitioning from it, but I listened to all of it. So it was about a minute.

27:31
Michael Warren
It’s a very short time period that we’re talking about here. But even going in and out, the thoughts that were going through your mind, I know I’m hit, but I just don’t know where. And if I don’t know where, I don’t know how bad. And if I don’t know how bad, then there’s a whole bunch of things that I don’t know. You’re going in and out. He puts the quick clot on. And by the way, first aid stuff really doesn’t help you in an emergency. If it’s in your patrol car, it needs to be on your body somewhere. You never need it more badly than when you need it right now, so carry it on your body. All right. So you’re fading in and out. They put the quick clot on. What happens now?

28:11
Samantha Hodgson
So in my mind, when were stopped right there at the parking lot, even throughout the whole process, like, every time I was on alert, I was just telling myself, you’re okay. It’s okay. Went through my mind at least a million times during that minute. It was just one of those things that calmed my breathing, and because that’s, of course, another thing that the military would always harp on. I mean, even in Little Rock, a couple of the trainings, like, you’re running really fast, just control your breathing. It’ll help combat breathing. Telling myself I was okay. And so we get to the parking lot, and the ambulance finally pulls up. Fire trucks are coming down. You can hear them. And at this point, I could hear all the sirens. Calvary was coming. Everybody from Little Rock, Benton, everywhere. Everybody was here.

29:03
Samantha Hodgson
And so they get me on the ambulance. I guess I FaceTimed a family member. Didn’t realize I was facetiming a family member. And she’s like, what happened? I’m like, I don’t know. I think I was shot and I had my camera up showing her everything. I’m like, I don’t know because it was crazy. And she’s like, I can’t believe you did that. I’m like, I don’t remember doing it. Like I’m hearing it from you. They get me there into the ambulance, they assess everything. And then when I looked down, that’s when I realized I had to have been hit up high because I saw blood on my badge and, like, my whole uniform was covered. So that’s kind of when it hit in the ambulance, I would say, is when I realized where I was hit.

29:49
Michael Warren
When people think about getting hit in Neck high, most people think that’s going to be something that’s fatal. Once you realize where this had occurred, what starts going through your mind at.

30:01
Samantha Hodgson
That point, I had a feeling I was going to die. It did go through my mind. Like, I thought I was done for. Because who gets hit in the head with a twelve gauge shotgun? Birdshot. Who gets hit in the head and survives that? Like, any kind of gunshot, for that matter. Because at that time, I knew I was hit in the head. I didn’t know what he had used, but, I mean, obviously afterwards you figure it out. But I literally didn’t think I was going to make it because I kept going in and out, like, in and out. And then they called for the helicopter to come. It landed on the backside of our target that we had over there. I remember seeing the chief, he asked for my cell phone, and I said, no. I put it in my pocket.

30:48
Samantha Hodgson
And then, of course, they took everything else. I remember when they were backing me into the helicopter, telling the flight nurse, I’m like, look. And I remember this clear as day. I know it’s dark outside because it’s nighttime. It was like almost 09:00 839 o’clock. I’m like, I know it’s dark. I know it’s cold because it’s almost Christmas, but it’s getting very dark and it’s getting extremely cold. And she’s like, you’ll be okay. I’m like, I’m okay.

31:16
Michael Warren
We recognize the need for the helicopter because it gets you to a place that can help you more quickly, but that also psychologically, man, they’re calling for a chopper. It must really. And so when you get on there, you tell her, hey, listen, it’s getting really dark. Hey, you’re going to be okay. What happens next?

31:36
Samantha Hodgson
Then I told her. I don’t like flying because I hate flying. I joined the Air Force, and I hate flying.

31:41
Michael Warren
It’s like joining the Navy and not liking the water. I don’t know. Just say it.

31:45
Brent Hinson
You buried the lead there. Your air force, you don’t like flying.

31:49
Samantha Hodgson
Don’t.

31:49
Brent Hinson
This is an interesting conundrum we have here.

31:53
Samantha Hodgson
But, yeah, I told her, I said, look, I don’t like flying. She’s like, it’s okay. And she’s okay. And I’m like, okay, I’m good. So they give me a little bit of medicine. I call it a cocktail, because when you go in for surgery and stuff, you’re feeling super loopy. And I fell asleep. That point, I didn’t know if I died. I remember that portion clear as day. In my mind, I knew what happened. I’m realizing everything that happened, and I’m comprehending how I’m feeling, and I just go to sleep afterwards. When I woke up in the hospital, I’m like, oh, my God, I thought I died, literally, like, holy cow, I blacked out. But I’m here trying to make sense of it all.

32:40
Brent Hinson
It’s a lot to process at once.

32:42
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah, a lot to process at once. Because you know you’re hit. You know you’re bleeding if you’re hit. So, I mean, it’s just one of those things like, what road are we going to take, left or right? So we get to the hospital. I remember them wheeling me off because I got really cold again. And of course, as cold as can be down here, it’s different from north. It’s like a different cold. So you get really cold.

33:08
Michael Warren
It’s a wet cold. It’s a bone chilling cold.

33:11
Samantha Hodgson
Yes, it is cold. So we get off the helicopter, and I remember feeling the wheels bump on the little bumpy things on the walkway. And then I remember seeing a bright light. Now, keep in mind, I was hit on the left side from literally, like, I guess you could say the corner of my left eye all the way up and down to my shoulder and all the way to the back of my neck, I remember seeing a very bright light. And then shadows. It looked like shadows. Like tall people, short people, like, just people along the wall. Couldn’t make anybody out, couldn’t see color, couldn’t see anything. I just looked like shadows. So I’m going down, and I’m breathing because I knew where I was at the hospital. I knew something was wrong.

34:00
Samantha Hodgson
So I focused on my breathing and in my mind, telling myself, it’s okay. So we get to the trauma room. They back me in, and, of course, a swarm of doctors, a couple of guys, they’re all right there. Like, oh, my God, are you okay? We got to fix this. And I’m like, I just laid there, and then I was in and out in the trauma room. And then I think they took a couple of CAT scans and MRIs or whatever those medical terms are. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know. We’re doing that, all that stuff. And then I remember telling the nurse, I’m like, I have to go to the bathroom, and I’m going to puke. I can feel it. And she’s like, no, you’re fine. I said, no, I’m not.

34:46
Samantha Hodgson
And then I roll over and I puke on her shoe. I think I warned her. And then I’m like, I got to go to the bathroom. So they handled all that business, and then I just fell asleep. Apparently, that night. I had one eye surgery that night just to see because my eye, it was swollen, and it was all swollen. And then I woke up in the hospital. To people coming in and out. The community here is like family. Literally, they were there at the drop of a dime helping with my daughter, because, like I said, I was single mom at the time. She was home by herself, enjoying a good old Dr. Pepper. I had just gotten her from come and go and a baggie of worms, those gummy worms. So she’s living her best little teenage life, so everybody helped with everything.

35:42
Samantha Hodgson
And it was phenomenal, like, just having that bond with the community and the was. It was huge.

35:50
Michael Warren
I’m already starting to tear up. Brent, dag on it. The first time you saw your daughter, what was that like for you?

35:58
Samantha Hodgson
She curled up on. From what I can remember, she curled up on the bed on top of the blanket, kind of like on my right side, because she was scared to be on this side. I mean, anybody would. And I’m like, it’s okay. Everything’s fine. During the shooting, when they were dragging me, my phone rang. I don’t remember it, but after watching the video, my phone rang, and my kid, I gave her the most obnoxious ringtone. So I can hear it no matter where I’m at, what I’m doing, you can hear on my body mic that it was her phone call. I answered it. At some point, I was like, Abby, I’m good. I got to go see the doctor, and I love you. And then she’s like, okay, I love you, Mom. Bye.

36:43
Samantha Hodgson
And we hung up like, I said, I don’t remember doing it, but according to the body Mike, I did that. Exactly that. And I guess that’s why I didn’t give the chief my phone.

36:54
Michael Warren
I can’t imagine what it must have been like for your daughter when somebody has to come and get her because she needs to be there. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for her.

37:07
Samantha Hodgson
She finally was able, I think, when I got home from the hospital, we didn’t talk about anything for at least a couple of months, which is perfectly fine. You’re still processing it. It’s normal. But when she finally started talking about it, she said, I heard the sirens because I keep the windows open for fresh air. I drove right past where we live with my lights and sirens on. She called while I was running code, but by policy, you can’t answer your phone or do anything except the radio and computer and whatnot. And so I knew it was her. She was calling. She’s probably trying to figure out, mom, what are you guys doing? Because I’ll tell her some stories. Not all of them. Some.

37:49
Samantha Hodgson
And she tried calling, but she said she heard those sirens, saw a couple of lights, and then she says it was like, a minute later, I hear a lot of sirens and a helicopter and all this other stuff. And then I followed you on life 360 over all the trees to UAMF.

38:10
Michael Warren
I’d never even considered that. Right there. That had to be surreal, watching your little blip going across. My mom doesn’t like flying. What is going on here? Oh, my goodness.

38:22
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah. So she had a lot to process, but that goes back to my blue family. They were there. I had a family member at the time down here. She was here. They were helping with, literally, my life, like, everything my life, because my kid, hands down, I will do whatever I need to for her, no matter what. Any of us would. But they were there. Drop of a dime picked her up, brought her to the hospital. Then whenever I got to my room is when they kind of let her in there, and she didn’t leave my side. I have a couple of pictures where she’s in the background, and she is just sitting still as can be, like in a comfy chair, just not moving. She was just making sure nobody’s seen her so she could stay there because she didn’t want to leave.

39:09
Samantha Hodgson
It was a long process, not only for me, but for her as well.

39:12
Michael Warren
How long did you end up staying in the hospital?

39:15
Samantha Hodgson
Hospital? I was only in there for five days.

39:18
Michael Warren
Notice how she said only Brent five days anywhere even on vacation is a pretty good length of time. Just saying.

39:25
Brent Hinson
Well, I know the hospitals will try to get you in and out as quickly as possible, and a lot of times, you don’t get a lot of rest in the hospital because there’s people coming in and out of the room so much. So it’s almost best to go home to do a little bit of your recovery. But your recovery just starts when you kind of get home. And I think we failed to mention this is December 2019. You’re going into COVID in a couple of months and lockdowns, and then you’re rehabbing at home, and that had to be its own separate issue. So you had a lot of plates in the air.

39:53
Samantha Hodgson
It was a lot, like, a lot because I couldn’t actually physically go to therapy appointments and whatnot. I had to do Zoom, and I’m like, this is dumb. I’m not interacting like I need to.

40:05
Michael Warren
I want to take you back to the hospital for a second, if I could. When you finally were coherent and not going in and out, and the doctor or doctors come to you and they’re explaining to you what happened to you when they did that, what was going through your mind at that point? Were you thinking, oh, my goodness.

40:22
Samantha Hodgson
I accused. I definitely said a few cuss words. Whenever they told me. They’re like, you’ll be fine. You’re going to make a recovery. We just have to monitor a few things, and depending on those few things, you’ll be back to normal. I’m like, I don’t think I’ll be back to normal after this. It’ll be a different normal, a new norm. It didn’t really hit me as far as what happened and how it happened until I was at home. People kept knocking on the door, I’ll show up, I’ll open the door, and there’s, like, groceries everywhere. I’m like, this really flipping happened.

40:58
Michael Warren
That’s fantastic. You talked about that the first night you had an eye surgery. What were the worst of your injuries? I know that when you’re talking about birdshot, there’s a lot of little things that go in a bunch of different place. What were the worst of your injuries?

41:14
Samantha Hodgson
I would say my worst injury was my eye only because people take for granted. I mean, I’m guilty of it. I know a lot of people are guilty of it. Eyesight, you’re just looking around, you see everything. You’re like, whatever. I can see it, whatever. But the darkness, like, when I would open my eyes, you got crusties in your eyes and stuff. In the mornings, you got to wipe them out, and you fully expect your other eye to be open, looking at everything. Not being able to see was the worst part for me, just not being able to see out of my eye.

41:50
Michael Warren
And then you recently got braces.

41:53
Samantha Hodgson
Yes. That would be the second thing would be my jaw. My jaw. Since the whole impact was my ear, my jaw, like, mainly my head and neck on the side. One of the bird like, I guess one or two of the birdshots kind of hit my eyeball itself, and I had a detached retina that they had to go in and fix three different times. Three different surgeries for that. And the last surgery was kind of like, we don’t know. It might work, it might not. I said, just give me the cocktail. Let’s go. You got a job to do. I need to see. We got to finish this. So, thankfully, he’s like, don’t take the eye patch off for three days. I’m like, okay, what? Cop listens? I took it off.

42:44
Brent Hinson
Now, you said you were a rule follower earlier.

42:46
Samantha Hodgson
I’m just saying, not when it comes to the eyesight, though. But I took the eye patch off, and everything was upside down that I could see. So I guess that’s why he told me not to take it off, because everything, you just got to reflip itself or something. I don’t know. But I could see. And at that time, whenever I didn’t follow that rule, it kind of made me feel better. I was like, okay, let’s process this now. Let’s get dive ahead first and process.

43:20
Michael Warren
All of it, because you’re trending in the right direction at that point. Okay. Now that I know that I’m going forward, then I can process this. How long, and I hate to say was the recovery process, because you’re still having to deal with it, but the rehab process, how long did that take you?

43:39
Samantha Hodgson
I want to say I was in time out. I call it timeout because it makes me feel better. So I was in time out for nine months.

43:51
Michael Warren
Wow.

43:52
Samantha Hodgson
So it took me nine months. And like I said, I have braces and stuff on now because they’re realigning my jaw. They’re pushing my jaw back to the left. It messed it all up in that joint. And your jaw plays a big role in your day to day life when it comes down to everything.

44:11
Michael Warren
It’s like when you stub your pinky toe, you don’t realize how much you use that dag on thing until it hurts.

44:16
Samantha Hodgson
Exactly.

44:17
Brent Hinson
I had surgery on my abdomen and you didn’t realize how much your abdomen you use to turn yourself in bed until you’re cut open. You don’t realize these things until you don’t have them anymore.

44:27
Samantha Hodgson
Exactly. And just eating and everything. My jaw would pop every time. Even when I would swallow. Sometimes the left side, it would pop. And at night, because, of course, with all of this, I had some very bad nightmares. Like, crazy nightmares. And my jaw would clench. Like, it would just lock. So with the injury and whatnot, it made it hard just to open my mouth in the morning and whatnot.

44:55
Michael Warren
Personal question here. Was there any point during this process where you were thinking to yourself, I’m not going back to this job. I can’t put my daughter through this again. I can’t put myself through this again. Maybe I’ve used up my one lucky, my second life or whatever, but was there any point where you were thinking to yourself, yeah, this is it? No, really. Was there any point that your daughter was saying, mom, don’t go and do that?

45:24
Samantha Hodgson
There was one where we actually sat down and talked about all of that, literally went into detail about my lifelong goals, her lifelong goals, like, what she wants to do, what she’s excited about, literally, in detail with her, talked about every bit of it, because I told her, I’m like, this is something I’ve dreamt about doing until the day I can’t walk anymore. And I said, this right here is a game changer, though. I said, we can go one of two ways, and that would be me retiring and just stepping away from law enforcement 100%, and then I will try to find another job. I even told her this. I’m like, I don’t see myself doing anything else. I just don’t. And she’s like, okay.

46:11
Samantha Hodgson
I said, we can do that, or I can become an SRO, because after all of this, she’s got this thing where she has to have an eye on me. Not me on my eye on her, but an eye on me to kind of help her get through her time. And I said, then let me become an SRO. I’ll be right there with you. We’ll have all the time off. Same time off, same holidays, like any sporting event. I’ll be right there. I said, don’t answer the question right now. I said, give it a week. Give it two weeks if we have to, because we have nothing but time right now. And she literally wrote little letter, and I read it, and she’s like, at the end of it is like, follow your dream.

46:58
Michael Warren
That’s awesome.

46:59
Samantha Hodgson
It was just one of those things. I needed to have her approval, because if she would have been like, no, I don’t want you to go back. It’s too hard for me. There’s this. I would have stepped down.

47:11
Brent Hinson
It sounds like you have a very mature and smart young woman that you’ve raced.

47:17
Samantha Hodgson
Oh, yeah. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She truly does. She doesn’t see it or realize it, but I told her one day she will. She’ll see all of it when she’s least expecting it.

47:27
Michael Warren
We talked about the impact that it had on your daughter, but I think a lot of times what is lost when there’s an incident like this is the impact that it has on those that we work with. How did this impact, and how were the folks that were there with you, how are they handling things?

47:45
Samantha Hodgson
At first, I want to say, just because I was very involved at first. They were at the house often. We were checking on each other all the time, and a couple of the guys really didn’t want to talk about it. They didn’t want to relive it. They just wanted to be like, it happened, let’s move on. Which I respect, because some people, they deal with things differently. But in my mind, I’m like, no, you’re my brother. We’ve talked to me about this because not only, obviously, you got stuff you got to work through, but me talking to you is part of me coping with almost dying. It’s just one of those things. One of them walked with me through the entire thing because one of my therapy healing procedures.

48:35
Samantha Hodgson
And for me, because it’s just me, I wanted to walk up the stairs, look at the door and walk back. One of them came with me. We went and did it, and the hole was still in the door. There was still blood stain on the stairs and, like, a little puddle on the top and on the bottom. That was mine. There was, of course, the other guy’s blood as well, but it was mainly me just going there to see it.

49:03
Brent Hinson
Closure.

49:04
Samantha Hodgson
Yeah. Closing that door.

49:06
Brent Hinson
Sense of just bringing the whole thing. Yeah.

49:08
Michael Warren
When you’re there, when something like this happens, that sense of mortality, it not only affects you, it affects them, and it affects their family members, because they realize, hey, this abstract thing that was out there, this abstract threat, it’s real, and it can cause problems. It seems like that your community and your agency have been very supportive of you throughout this entire process and had to really relieve a lot of your stress.

49:39
Samantha Hodgson
It did. Because, like I said in the hospital, somebody was always there. Somebody was always with my daughter. Somebody was always there, making sure I was still looked after, and my kid was still looked after. And I mean, everybody, like I said, has different ways of dealing with it for the most part. I want to say everybody’s okay. We, of course, joke around with each other a lot now, literally, about it. Like, we’ll see geese flying over, and they’re like, golly, I wish I had my shotgun and my bird shot. I’m like, hang on. I’ve got the bird shot for you. I don’t have the shotgun. I mean, it’s kind of morbid, but.

50:20
Michael Warren
It’S part of the coping process.

50:21
Samantha Hodgson
Exactly. It’s just one of those things. Like, it just to let it go and kind of just. It’s there. It happened. It’ll forever be something I have to physically and mentally deal with, but nothing says you have to dwell on it.

50:37
Michael Warren
So, as we wrap this incredible story up, how has this changed your mindset, your outlook on life as we’re in the Thanksgiving week? Has it made you more thankful for life as you know it? Time with your family, time with your friends?

50:55
Samantha Hodgson
That’s exactly I was about to say, time is what I’m thankful for, because literally, it can be ripped away from you in a tiny little half of a second. Ripped away from you, especially when you don’t see it coming. Because, like I said, the guy, he didn’t open the door. Nothing. So I didn’t see it coming. And time is something that people should value more, even if it’s a two second phone call to whoever, be like, hey, bro, you good? Okay, bye. Just reach out, talk. And another thing, pictures. Because I didn’t take very many pictures before the shooting, and now after the shooting, I’ve realized pictures are worth a thousand words. So time and pictures, that’s what people need to. You can’t get it back.

51:45
Michael Warren
Simple times like wrapping presents and drinking Dr. Pepper while eating gummy worms, those truly are the precious moments in life.

51:54
Brent Hinson
That’s the good stuff.

51:57
Michael Warren
It’s the minutes, not the hours, not the days. And so, as we wrap up here, I have a couple of things to tell you. Number one, thank you for your military services as Veterans Day is rolling up here. Second thing is, thank you for your service to your community. I appreciate your resilience, your willingness to answer the call and then to continue on. And so we have so much to be thankful for in this life that often lose sight of because we get too busy, we become. I mean, you want to talk about complacent. Most people are complacent in their thankfulness. We take things for granted. And thank you for your willingness to share this story. I am thankful that you made it through.

52:41
Michael Warren
As my sister in blue, I’m sorry you had to go through it, but I appreciate the fact that you came through it and came through it with flying colors.

52:49
Samantha Hodgson
Everything happens for a reason, and if this is one of the reasons I’m still here, is to share the story and encourage somebody, I’ll be sharing it all day long.

52:58
Michael Warren
Well, we appreciate you doing that. And we got a lot to be thankful for, man. Lot to be thankful for.

53:03
Brent Hinson
Yeah. You hate that you have to hear a story like this to have some sense knocked back into your own head to say, wait, let’s slow down a little bit and appreciate those little small things in your life. So thank you so much for sharing your story with us, and thank you so much for all the service that you’ve done and you continue to do.

53:21
Samantha Hodgson
Of course. No, it’s my pleasure. I mean, I literally don’t see myself doing anything else. I just can’t.