Senior Trooper Eric Workman
Twice in his career, Senior Trooper Eric Workman has experienced critical, even life-threatening, injuries, and in both instances, he not only came back to work but also maintained the highest level of performance, including during the past four years serving on the exceptionally hazardous Maryland State Apprehension Team. His supervisor, Sergeant Ben Neil, said he nominated Eric for the Theodore Roosevelt Police Award “because of all the adversity he’s been through and yet still come back to his job. He’s dedicated to law enforcement, to the citizens of the State of Maryland, and to his coworkers, and if he were injured again, he’d still come back.”
Eric’s first injury happened not too long after he joined the force, in 1998. A car going about 50 mph hit Eric while he was standing next to his patrol car during a traffic stop on the Capital Beltway. Thrown 60 feet on to the median, Eric had compound leg and hand fractures, serious damage to his spleen, and a lung contusion that required him to be on a ventilator for 15 days. After being hospitalized for six weeks and enduring at least 12 surgeries, Eric returned to duty in eight months.
Eight years later in December 2006, after transferring first to the narcotics, and then criminal, investigation unit, Eric was gravely injured while apprehending a fugitive who had been involved in a home invasion. Eric was among the officers who entered the house where the suspect was hiding. As two colleagues advanced towards an upstairs bedroom ahead of Eric, the suspect bolted out of the room firing his semi-automatic 380-caliber weapon and setting off a heated gunfight. One of the fugitive’s rounds ripped into Eric’s left arm, passed between the panels of his Kevlar vest and ricocheted inside his body, clipping his left lung and kidney, and destroying his spleen. Eric, who had shot the fugitive twice, staggered towards the front door of the house, where colleagues sprang into action to help him. Despite his wounds, he had the presence of mind to stay as calm as possible and keep his breathing under control.
During the course of five operations at Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, surgeons didn’t feel they could safely remove the bullet, and to this day it rests about two centimeters from Eric’s spine. Yet three months later, he returned to work, and in 2007 joined the Maryland State Apprehension Team, a high-performance unit that often apprehends subjects considered great risks to the community and law enforcement.
Of his participation in the Maryland State Apprehension Team, Eric said, “A lot of people are not geared to this work, but I am. It’s something I want to do and that I think I’m best at. So if people like me don’t do it, who will?” And on staying on the front lines of law enforcement, he observed, “I’ve given my oath, my commitment, and I will honor it until I can’t.”
Sergeant Neil indicated that Eric’s absolute dedication and professionalism have set him apart in the field. “I’ve never known anyone who can do things the way he does. The way he interviews people and closes cases --it’s phenomenal. He’s the most natural trooper I’ve ever met.”