TROOPER ON THE MEND FROM TRUCK ENCOUNTER

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 5, 1993                   TAG: 9303050061
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
TROOPER ON THE MEND FROM TRUCK ENCOUNTER
Trooper Dan Jessee now sits in his apartment and wiles away the hours doing oil paintings of landscapes.
Occasionally, he does breathing exercises to keep his lung from collapsing a second time.
He's still smarting from the bruises and eight ribs he had broken when a truck rolled over him last week in the median of icy Interstate 81 near the Virginia 419 exit.
"I don't complain about the pain," he said from his home after a week in Roanoke Memorial Hospital. "I'm just glad I'm here. I was one step away from death."
On Feb. 22 Jessee was helping a motorist whose car had slid on ice down a steep median where another car had earlier fallen into a ravine. The woman spent a night in the hospital after being treated for a bruised heart.
"She appeared to be in shock," said Jessee, 42. "I was trying to get her pulse."
Suddenly, he looked up and saw a flatbed truck sliding down the median and coming toward the car.
"The truck struck the lady's vehicle, went airborne, rolled over me and drove me into the ground," Jessee said.
"At first I thought it was a snowplow. I said, `Feet don't fail me now.' I thought I wasn't going to be able to outrun it. It looked like a big kite above me."
After the truck rolled over him, Jessee looked up and saw the truck teetering on its side with its wheels toward him. Fearing it would again drop over on him, he staggered to his feet and ran down the median away from the truck before collapsing in pain.
"I was wondering if this was the day I was going to die," Jessee said. Then his determination kicked in.
" `I'm not going to die here,' " he remembered telling himself. "I knew I was hurt bad. I could hear my ribs cracking as I breathed. I wasn't going to give up. I had too much to live for."
Still, he could hear the woman he was trying to help screaming from pain and fear.
"I was frustrated that I couldn't get back to her," he said.
The truck driver got out of his vehicle and ran over to Jessee to cover him with a coat. Meanwhile, a passenger in the truck ran to Jessee's patrol car and radioed state police dispatchers for help.
Jessee remained confident that he would survive his injuries.
"The ground was so soft. That's what saved me," Jessee said. "It kept my bones from expanding and breaking."
As it is, he can't lift his arms to shave. He hopes later that he'll be able to do some fishing during the two months it is expected to take him to heal well enough to go back to work.
"I have to sleep in an upright position," he said. "I can't roll over on my side."
He's thankful for the many cards, flowers, and calls he's received from friends and strangers, who said they appreciate the job that troopers do.
"I was one step away from death," Jessee said. "One more step and I would have caught the full brunt of the truck. The Lord was definitely with me."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB