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Dekalb Officer Daniel Lacoste In Induced Coma After Car Strike

By Lena Sullivan 07/17/2011 13:37:00

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Daniel Lacoste

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- A police officer injured after a car hit him Sunday morning has been placed in a medically-induced coma.

Daniel Lacoste was in critical condition after being hit while investigating a car wreck on Interstate 20. Lacoste is a veteran officer with DeKalb County police.

Renee Pitzer said her brother puts his life on the line every time he goes to work, but always thought if he were seriously hurt it would be from a gun, not a car.

“I didn’t expect it to be somebody hit him on the side of the road, I don’t know how they couldn’t see the lights,” Pitzer said.

DeKalb police said that’s exactly what happened. They will only confirm one of their own responded to a wreck overnight on I-20 east, just before the Evans Mill Road exit.

Bryant Hill said a driver sideswiped his tractor-trailer. When Lacoste got out of his car to talk with him, the officer was hit by a passing motorist.

“I think people need to be more aware to what’s going on around them, pay more attention the road and everything like that. The accident was a simple accident but it turned big when people wasn’t paying attention,” Hill said.

Witnesses said the officer was wearing a reflective vest, so his family can’t understand why it happened.

Lacoste has been placed on a respirator, in a medically induced coma.

“Cars and bones really don’t do well together and so that’s really the disappointing part that someone would drive through an accident scene callously. Give them a lane. Give them a lane, protect them, they protect us,” Lacoste’s brother, Jason Lacoste, said.

Family members said Lacoste’s leg has been broken in two places, but it’s the skull fracture and swelling near his brain stem that have them most concerned.

“We’re praying for him and we’d like for the city of Atlanta to join us in that,” Jason Lacoste said.