Officer tells of horror ride on car

Police officer Wayne Poole clung to the bonnet by his fingertips and only threw himself off the speeding car to save his own life.
"I had to get off the car. That's all I knew. We were travelling at least 50km/h already ? any faster and I knew if I didn't get off the bonnet, I was going to die. There was nothing else in my mind," he said.
"I swung my legs and body around, the car swerved, and I let go."
Wayne had travelled to Masterton on a Saturday night in December last year as an operational support officer with the Tactical Alcohol Group.
The group set up their road stop on Chapel Street and began randomly checking passing cars and motorists.
It was just after 1am on Sunday when Wayne and another officer stopped Belinda Sutherland, who was driving a Hyundai car with a dog onboard.
"It was a beautiful night, as it often is in the Wairarapa. There was no wind. It was perfect," he said.
Sutherland asked Wayne what was to happen to her dog. He told her it would depend on the result of the stop.
While another officer questioned Sutherland, Wayne walked around the car and stood a half-meter from the front of the vehicle, stepped back and looked down to check the number plate.
He heard the car start up.
"I heard the motor and caught the movement of the car as it came toward me. I decided to leap on the bonnet rather than go under the wheels, and was hanging on to the rim of the wiper wells by my fingertips.
"If the speed got up near the 80 to 100 mark, I knew I was very likely to get a fractured skull. I decided I had to throw myself off the bonnet.
"I didn't plan the impact or anything. It all just happened too fast."
Wayne struck the road and was knocked unconscious. His police safety vest was tattered and later cut from him at the hospital. He also suffered a broken collarbone and rib, and "massive bruising".
"When I woke up, still on the road, I thought I was dreaming. I don't really remember anything until they were cutting off my clothes in the emergency room."
Wayne is this week back on full "late night" duty for the first time since the incident, and while fit and well he still wakes in the mornings a little pained and aching.
"To be honest, the day I was injured I was in shock. But in the days following, I realised how lucky I was to still be alive."
There has not been a moment since last December, he said, that he or partner Judy have considered his leaving the police. Even his two daughters, Emma and Grace, accept that their father pursues a career more dangerous at times than others.
He will approach his work in a more cautious manner, he said, with the surrendering of keys perhaps necessary as a precaution with some drivers.
"The job we do is sometimes a difficult one, even though most people we encounter are normal and decent.
"You are ever mindful about what may be contained inside the cars you are stopping, but you can't let it rule your life worrying what, or who, is in the next car you stop."
Sutherland was a week ago sentenced to 3? years jail for the aggravated injury of Wayne and a raft of other charges related to the incident.
Her cumulative sentence also included six months for assaulting a Chinese woman on a train last year, and charges of breach of bail and threatening language.