MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – One year after a terrible accident, Miami-Dade police Officer Matthew Larsh is just grateful to be alive.
“It has been a journey the past year,” the police motorman told reporters Wednesday. “You find out, I guess along the way, what you’re made of when you face some serious challenges.”
Larsh was at Jackson Memorial Hospital Wednesday morning, meeting with the men and women who saved his life.
“Matt, I remember you came in in pretty bad shape,” one doctor said.
“They told me I was conscious on scene -- I have no memory of it,” Larsh said.
Last year, while heading to a training session, Larsh collided head-on with an SUV at the intersection of Northwest 36th Street and 53rd Avenue.
The impact of the crash knocked him off his motorcycle and sent him flying into the air. He hit the ground hard.
“He’s a tough guy and he was able to weather the storm,” one firefighter said.
At Wednesday’s celebration of his recovery, doctors talked about the severe injuries he suffered.
Despite the multiple fractures suffered, internal bleeding and having to be placed on a ventilator, Larsh was released from the hospital nearly a month after the crash.
And after two months of physical therapy, video shows him starting to walk again.
In January, nine months after the accident, he returned to work.
“There’s nothing in healthcare that makes us more happy than to see a patient like you coming back,” trauma surgeon Dr. Antonio C. Marttos Jr. said.
“I’m happy to say I’ll be up and walking here hopefully soon and making a full recovery,” Larsh said.
Larsh has had 13 surgeries following the crash and is continuing to go to physical therapy.
When he returned to work in January, he transferred to the traffic homicide division where he is investigating crashes similar to his own.