The woman accused of driving drunk and plowing into a Derry police officer was being held behind bars on $50,000 cash bail yesterday, while the officer recovered from his injuries in a Boston hospital.
Susan Foss, 43, of Derry, charged earlier this month with drunken driving, was driving with a temporary license at the time of the crash in Windham, Police Capt. Patrick Yatsevich said.
Reached by phone in his room at Boston Medical Center, Derry Police Officer Robert Moore, 34, said he is recovering well. He said he is being treated for bruising on his hip and elbow.
"It (the truck) hit me in the right hip, and I went right up over the hood," Moore said. "I guess someone came over and used my radio to call for help."
Police said Foss hit Moore with her 1990 Chevy pickup truck around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday as the officer was doing detail work for road construction on Route 28 in Windham. Moore was taken by helicopter to Boston after a preliminary assessment by Windham emergency medical technicians suggested he was seriously injured, Windham Police Sgt. Michael Caron wrote in a court affidavit.
Witnesses told investigators Foss was going south on Route 28 in the construction zone when the pickup hit the officer, who was directing traffic in the southbound travel lane, Caron wrote.
Foss has two drunken-driving convictions on her record, from 1998 and 1999, police said. On July 9, Pelham police arrested her on a driving while intoxicated charge; she was out on bail at the time of this week's accident.
Pelham Police Sgt. Gary Fisher, the officer who arrested Foss two weeks ago, took her valid license and gave her a temporary. "Susan, when she was arrested, refused to submit to a breath test and therefore fell under the administrative rules for a license suspension," Fisher told WMUR-TV last night.
Police said on Wednesday that Foss showed signs of being drunk after the accident. She failed three field sobriety tests, lost her balance at one point and dozed off in the back of a cruiser en route to Parkland Medical Center for a blood test, according to court papers. Court records say an initial blood draw was taken, but they did not indicate her estimated blood-alcohol content.
Prosecutor Heather Newell said Foss is unemployed and also has drug possession and simple assault convictions on her record, as well as an assault-and-battery case pending in Lawrence (Mass.) District Court.
During her arraignment yesterday in Derry District Court. Foss pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of drunken driving, but could not enter a plea for a felony aggravated driving while intoxicated charge. She did not speak to the charges in court, saying she'd rather talk to her lawyer first.
Foss is scheduled to appear in Salem District Court on Wednesday for her probable cause hearing.
Michael Houle, president of the Derry Police Patrolman's Association, said Moore's fellow officers have been gathering money to help pay for his expenses. Since Moore worked a lot of overtime, he said, he'll lose income while he's out on workman's compensation.
"We're hopeful that he'll only be out for maybe a month or so," he said.
Moore, a six-year veteran of the department, worked the late-night shift as a patrolman, Capt. Vernon Thomas said.
