On Aug. 3, off-duty Flathead County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Brauer was having a nice night.

He had enjoyed a movie night at a friend’s house in Kalispell and was on his way home. Brauer had not had anything to drink and was clear-headed as he drove north on U.S. 93 toward his home in Whitefish, traveling the speed limit in his Smart car.

It was like any other drive home, until he approached Happy Valley at about 2:40 a.m.

All of a sudden, Brauer saw the headlights of a vehicle that had crossed the grass median and was coming straight at him. Before he could react, the car driven by 27-year-old Lucy Ammons Beard of Kalispell struck him head-on.

“My car was spinning, it broke the hinge on my door and sheared off the latch so the door came open. I remember feeling like I was going to get sucked out of it, and then my car finally stopped and I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe,” Brauer said. “I did a couple shallow breaths and thought ‘OK, it just knocked the wind out of me.’”

Brauer then tried to grab his phone but couldn’t pick it up, at which point he noticed his wrist was broken.

“So I picked it up with my left hand and dialed 911, and as I was talking to the dispatcher my left leg would just jiggle because it was broken too,” he said. “They asked ,‘Well, can you check on the other driver?’ and I was like ‘No, my legs are broken.’ I was terrified I was paralyzed.”

Whitefish police officers were the first on the scene, and Brauer immediately asked that deputies also be dispatched as he works for the Sheriff’s Office.

Emergency responders went to the other car first to cut out the unconscious driver.

“Then they came over, cut my car all up, cut my feet out of my shoes, pulled me out of there, and I got to experience having my femur reset roadside with no painkillers,” he said. “Then [Whitefish Fire Department responders] loaded me up in the ambulance and took me to the [Kalispell] ER to work on me there.”

Throughout the entire incident, Brauer maintained his composure, remaining calm and clear-headed. He was later told that the only time he started getting emotional was when he was talking about the Sheriff’s Office and his concerns about being able to go back to work.

Brauer had a deputy sent to pick up his mother and bring her to the hospital.

“That was when I was really worried, because I thought ‘Man, I don’t want to die in front of my mom,’” Brauer said.

He underwent surgery at Kalispell Regional Medical Center to have a rod installed in his femur and a plate in his knee and was then flown to a hospital in Seattle, where his wrist and feet were operated on in separate surgeries.

“If you look at the X-rays of my feet it looks like I got in a fight with a nail gun,” Brauer joked.

In all, Brauer sustained a broken left femur, left tibia, right heel, right kneecap and right wrist. Most of his left foot was broken, too, due to the brake pedal bending down into it and crushing it. He later discovered he also had nearly bled to death from his femur injury.

WHAT FOLLOWED was nearly two months of treatment and recovery before he was allowed to go home.

Brauer spent about three weeks at the Seattle hospital before he was moved back to Kalispell, where he spent another month recuperating at Brendan House. It was there that Brauer marked the two-year anniversary with the Sheriff’s Office.

He has undergone further surgeries, including having a bone shard in his foot ground off and carpal tunnel surgery on his right wrist. The wrist surgery was intended to address the fact that Brauer has lost feeling in his index finger, middle finger and thumb on his right hand.

That loss of feeling means Brauer can’t feel the trigger of his service handgun, adding another roadblock he must overcome if he wants to eventually return to full duty on patrol. He said he occasionally gets the “pins and needles” feeling in the fingers and thumb, but that’s all so far.

Brauer was also told that even with a full recovery he can expect to lose 25 percent of the mobility in his feet and 10 percent of the mobility in his wrist, and that he will always have stiffness and pain. He is scheduled to see his doctors next week and has been told they will know more about his overall recovery in the next month or two.

And yet despite all the negative news, Brauer said his recovery so far has surprised his doctors.

“They’ve been shocked at how well I’ve recuperated,” he said. “[Dec. 2] was my first day back to work light duty, and they were shocked because they didn’t think it would be until January at the very earliest. I should still be learning how to walk again and all that stuff.”

Brauer’s dedication to get back to work should come as no surprise, considering how hard he worked to get his job in the first place.

He initially went through the full application and interview process and made it into the final group of 10 applicants, but didn’t get the position. Unwilling to give up, he started calling every other week, then every week, asking what they wanted to see done in order for him to get the job.

Finally, they gave him an intern position.

“So I worked a full-time-plus job as assistant manager of Flathead Janitorial, then had another little job on the side, and these were all during swing hours and nights, so then in the daytime they’d let me come in and intern for them,” Brauer said. “I did that for maybe a month, and then they finally gave me my job.”

Brauer has been so pleased with the job that prior to the crash, he had only taken one sick day and one “comp” day. Due to his diligence in making it to work, he had enough paid time off accrued to cover the entire time he was off the job recovering from his injuries.

He added that while he did not need the time, many people in the Sheriff’s Office offered to donate days off for him, had it been needed.

ON DEC. 5, almost precisely four months after the accident, Brauer sat in Flathead District Court, joined by family, fellow deputies, detention officers and Kalispell police officers as Beard pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of negligent vehicular assault.

Among them was a Kalispell officer who had stopped Brauer the night of the accident as he was leaving Kalispell. The officer had pulled Brauer over for having a burned-out taillight, a replacement for which Brauer had in the vehicle at the time.

“It was kind of cool to see him here,” Brauer said.

But Brauer said he has not received any support from Beard, adding his only contact from her was limited to her parents wishing him a speedy recovery.

“They won’t talk; her attorney hasn’t been helpful. They haven’t done anything,” he said. “If she would have apologized to me early on I would have felt much better. If she had owned it.”

A court document in the case alleges that Beard was found to have alcohol in her system — albeit at a legal 0.079 percent — as well as “multiple drug substances.” The document did not specify what those substances were.

Despite the nature of the incident and the fact that Beard had alcohol and “drug substances” in her system, she has been placed on basic house arrest as an alternative to an alcohol monitoring bracelet because she is also undergoing therapy for injuries she sustained in the crash.

When she appeared in court, she had a brace on one forearm and an boot-style air cast on one calf and foot.

Flathead County Deputy Attorney Travis Ahner has shared with the court the prosecution’s desire that Beard be under some sort of alcohol monitoring, but has not yet made that request.

Beard originally was incarcerated in the Flathead County Detention Center with bond set at $15,000 before being released on house arrest.

If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000 as well as restitution to Brauer. Her next hearing is set for Jan. 15, 2014.

 Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.