Wakefield police officer left with serious head injury after being slammed into a car by a suspect

PC Sam Woods, who works on the city’s drugs team, was left with a large gash on her forehead which required stitches following the attack last month. As well as leaving her with a scar, Sam also suffered injuries to her leg and arm.

But she didn’t immediately realise how badly she’d been injured. Sam said: “It all went black and then it was like I was back in the room. It was a weird feeling, because I didn’t feel any pain in my head, but when I put my hand on my head I could feel liquid. I pulled my phone out and took a picture, so I could see what injuries I had.

“When I saw the gash, I thought, ‘This is quite serious’. Luckily, an ambulance was with us within a couple of minutes. They didn’t know if I had any spinal injuries, so treated it quite seriously. They bandaged my head up, and I was feeling confused and a bit dazed at that point. There were injuries to my leg and arm as well, but no bone damage – I just had torn muscles and bruising.”

After the incident, Sam struggled to sleep and suffered from headaches and brain fog. She has now gone back to work, but is still not fully operational, as she was apprehensive about returning to full duties.

Sam said: “It’s one of those situations where it couldn’t really be avoided in the job that I do. It could easily happen again. I didn’t want to show my mum the picture of my head to start with, because now she’ll phone me sometimes and say: ‘How’s work been today?’. I think it gave my parents a shock that I potentially might not come home from work.”

Sam grew up in Wakefield and said she wanted to help combat the drug problem there, especially as she had lost school friends after they had become addicted to heroin.

She said: “I know the effects it can have on people. We’re never going to get rid of drugs altogether. But even if it’s just helping one or two people and getting them out of that situation.

“It’s not about the money, because we don’t get paid brilliantly. But I do it because I love the job. I love helping people and bringing people to justice.”

But Sam said there needed to be tougher sentences for offenders who assault police officers. She recently travelled to the House of Commons to speak to Halifax MP Holly Lynch about the dangers of policing.

Sam said: “It’s going to get worse and worse, as people think they can get away with it, because the sentences aren’t there. Protect the Protectors isn’t working. I think that, in recent years, policing has become a very hard job to do without it being dangerous, because the respect for the police has gone.

"We’re normal people. I go to work and do the job because I love it. But when things like this happen, you think: is it worth putting yourself through that for a job?”