Mere Seconds Before Fatal Crash Something Intervened That Was Found At Scene

A Tampa, Florida, police deputy was praised as a hero after he died acting as a “human shield” in a wrong-way car crash.

Sarah Geren was coming home from work with her boyfriend when she spotted a car coming towards her in her lane of traffic. Suddenly, things turn deadly when Geren pulled to the side of the road and Deputy John Robert Kotfila, Jr., intervened.

“As I realized the car was coming towards me faster and I started flashing my lights at him crazily, like a strobe light. I couldn’t think of any other way to say ‘Stop driving towards me!‘” she said. “I started to pull over to the side of the road, but that hadn’t even occurred all the way when the officer rushed around me… one or two seconds after he passed me, he hit the car, instead of me.”

Geren said she was convinced that Kotfila put himself in front of her car purposely.

“This man put himself in front of us as a human shield. Absolutely. He definitely saw what was going on. When I take a step back and look at the way everything occurred, he absolutely was a human shield for us,” she told WFLA.

The driver of the vehicle that was driving the wrong way, 31-year-old Erik McBeth, also died in the crash.

Kotfila’s co-workers remembered him as an outstanding officer and a founding member of the Safety Net Team — a program that focuses on finding people with special needs who wandered from home.

“John made us better. He made this program better. He makes this sheriff’s office better and he is going to be missed,” Sgt. Jeffery Massaro said.

“OMG! A waste of a good man’s life because of a careless move on the part of McBeth. People need to THINK when they get in the drivers seat. They are propelling a lethal weapon down the highway,” one Mad World News reader commented on the site’s Facebook page in response to the story.

“Everyday these men & women of law enforcement put themselves between honest citizens & those that have chosen to break our laws. God bless them & their families, the ones they leave behind!” another wrote.

“God has a truly good man with him now. May God bless this officers Family and loved one and heal their pain!!!!! Sending prayers to your family and loved ones Sir! You served and protected unselfishly and deserve everyone’s prayers and praises!!!!!” another added.

Sources: WFLA, Mad World News/Facebook / Featured Image: Konstantinos Stampoulis/Wikimedia Commons / Embedded Images: WFLA