By Tom Jackman
The Washington Post
December 13, 2016
It was sometime after 1 a.m., and rookie police officer Glenn Poe had drawn the midnight shift, cruising up Pickett Road in Fairfax City, Va., in the dark. Then a car roared past him, careening all over the road, in the opposite direction. Poe wheeled his patrol car around and took off in pursuit. But before he could catch up, he watched in horror as the car clipped one oncoming vehicle, then swerved completely into the other lane and smashed head-on into a much smaller car.
Gary Eckstein was driving the smaller car. It was February 1969 and he was 19 years old, a newly minted sailor in the U.S. Navy, home for the weekend and heading for a Fairfax City pizza joint in his dress blues. The last thing he remembers about that day is getting off the bus from Norfolk, where he was stationed on the USS Neosho. He awoke from a coma after three days, and spent the next nine months in Bethesda Naval Hospital with a broken arm, numerous head and internal injuries and a broken jaw, wired shut. He was told he’d been hurled from the tiny Morris Minor car he was driving by the force of the head-on collision.
Eckstein eventually recovered, got married and had children, moved away from Virginia and then back. And he always wondered about the accident, its lasting effects, and the officer who happened to be there. “I was brought up to say thank you,” Eckstein, now 67, said. “And how cool would that be, if I could find him?”
All he knew was “Officer Poe.” But when Eckstein called Fairfax City police, a civilian employee named Gail Hicks helped connect him with Poe, now 78 and living in southwestern Virginia. When Poe traveled to Northern Virginia for Thanksgiving, the two had an emotional reunion, and Eckstein learned much more about the pivotal event in his life than he ever knew.
First, Poe told him, Eckstein was not ejected from his car. His small British sedan flipped onto its top and burst into flames. Poe darted out of his car and ran to the Minor, but the door was jammed. “Some way, I got it opened,” Poe said.
Then he looked inside and saw the unconscious Eckstein. “His face was on fire,” Poe said. “His hair was on fire. I remember taking my hand and rubbing his face. I got burned on my hand a little. And I know I pulled him out because I was afraid the car was about to explode.”
Things suddenly fell into place for Eckstein. He has extensive numb patches on his scalp and side of his face but never knew exactly why. And he recalled that the first time he saw his face in the mirror at Bethesda Naval Hospital, one side was covered with a bright orange solution, although he didn’t end up with burn marks.
Eckstein realized that he hadn’t been ejected from his car, that Poe hadn’t just happened on the scene and called for an ambulance. Poe had saved his 19-year-old life.
“I didn’t know what to say,” Eckstein said, recalling the moment Poe told him the story. “I had to explain how happy and thrilled I was. I told him, ‘Here’s my wife and kids. You made all this happen.’ ”
Poe was humble in the classically understated police style. “I was just doing my job when the guy hit him,” Poe said the other day. “He’s a nice man,” he said of Eckstein. “Very pleasant wife. It’s nice to see somebody that you’ve done something good for.”
But his daughter Natalie, who hosted the reunion at her home in Chantilly, Va., said her father “was really touched by his [Eckstein’s] gratitude.” She added that her father “was surprised that he [Eckstein] survived the accident; apparently his injuries were severe.”
Poe’s memories of the crash are remarkably vivid nearly 48 years later. But most police officers never actually witness a crash; they just deal with the aftermath. Here, Poe had a clear view of a terrifically violent impact, possibly fatal, and then dashed into the middle of it. All in his first few months on the job.
Natalie Poe noted that “being a police officer was the core of who my father was as I was growing up. It was a job he took pride in . . . Through his career, he made lifelong friends in the community. And still to this day, he runs into people whose paths he had crossed.”
Eckstein enjoyed a career as a graphic artist, recently retired and settled in Fairfax City. He grew up in Annandale, Va., graduated from W.T. Woodson High School in 1968 and entered the Navy that fall, figuring it was the safest option if he was going to be sent to Vietnam. On Feb. 14, 1969, he took a bus home from Norfolk for a weekend leave.
Poe grew up in Abingdon, Va., worked for an electrical contractor in Northern Virginia after high school, got drafted and served in the Army, returned to Northern Virginia, worked for several more years and eventually signed up to be a cop in 1968.
And so both men found themselves driving north on then-two-lane Pickett Road in the early morning of Feb. 15, 1969. Eckstein has no memory of the night. Poe said he saw a southbound car “driving erratically all over the road. I made a U-turn and was in pursuit.”
Poe said the car was a four-door 1964 Plymouth sedan. It was driven by 24-year-old Lexie R. Mullins, court records show. “I was trying to catch up to him,” Poe recalled. “He was driving at a high rate of speed. He hit one car, then he hit the little Morris Minor head on. It went up in the air, and it was upside down when he came down. It was burning.”
The collision occurred in front of the huge gasoline tank farm on Pickett Road, the only development along that stretch in 1969. Poe radioed for backup, although he’s pretty sure there was only one other officer on duty in the small town, and for an ambulance. Then he raced to the Minor and pulled Eckstein out. Having done that, Poe said he went back to the Plymouth and found that Mullins “wasn’t very cooperative. But he wasn’t going anywhere, his car was tore up, too.”
Poe said that he arrested Mullins and charged him with drunken driving, but he did not recall the outcome. Fairfax general district court records from the 1960s no longer exist, nor do Fairfax City’s police reports. In 1970, Eckstein’s parents sued Mullins on behalf of their son in Fairfax circuit court, court records show. Eckstein received a settlement check for $20,000 in 1971, and the case was dismissed. Mullins could not be located for comment. Court records show that he was convicted of drunk driving in 1994, 1998 and 2001, the last resulting in a felony conviction, six-month jail sentence and the indefinite loss of his license, which was restored in 2010.
Several weeks after the accident, Eckstein’s mother sent a letter to the Fairfax City police chief, recommending Officer Poe for “a promotion or a citation or whatever can be done for a person so deserving.” June Eckstein recounted the accident in her letter, repeating the misunderstanding that Eckstein had been thrown “clear of the car and then the car rolled over top of him.” She noted that an ambulance arrived quickly and “If it hadn’t been for Officer Poe’s quick action and help, our son might not have made it.” June Eckstein concluded, “We do hope that more than just our heartfelt thanks will go to Officer Poe for his outstanding deed.”
Well, no. A commendation or award? “Back then, those were hard to come by,” Poe said. “Depended on your supervisor.” He did not receive any notice for his actions, and had never seen June Eckstein’s letter on his behalf until he met with Fairfax City police officials last Friday and received a copy. They provided him with a sheaf of complimentary letters, nearly 90 pages in all, written by various people he’d come in contact with over his 20 years on the force.
When Gary Eckstein reached out to the Fairfax City police earlier this year, he was given Poe’s phone number and they spoke briefly. He learned that Poe was headed to Northern Virginia for Thanksgiving, so he messaged Poe’s daughter to see if he might stop by, and she said yes.
“As I was finishing up meal preparation, the doorbell rang,” Natalie Poe said. “When I answered, no introductions were needed. Gary’s huge smile was looking back at me.” She walked Eckstein and his wife, Sethe, in to meet Poe.
“My dad was sitting in a recliner by the fire,” Natalie Poe said, “and I didn’t really have to finish with the formal introductions, they both shook hands and instantly reconnected. Sethe and I let them have some time alone to talk about everything that had occurred all those years ago. The visit was way too short, but was the highlight of our holiday. It’s rare that anyone would take the time and effort to hunt someone down after all these years just to say ‘thank you.’ ”
Fairfax City police Chief Carl Pardiny started on the force shortly after Poe retired, but he had heard of the veteran officer and said “he’s just a real soft-spoken southern gentleman. The story itself is just remarkable. Our officers go out and do their jobs every day to save lives and make a difference in people’s lives without wanting praise or awards or honors. He pulled this gentleman from the burning car. I’d never heard the story before.”
Eckstein hadn’t heard much of the story himself before Thanksgiving Day. “It was the most amazing thing,” Eckstein said. “He still had all these pretty vivid memories of what happened there. It was just so amazing that I could finally talk to him. I had to do this. I had to talk to the guy. If he hadn’t been there as fast as he was, I would’ve been a goner.”
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