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Baltimore police officer Teresa Rigby survived being knocked over a retaining wall and roughly 30 feet down into the parking lot of a Pepsi bottling plant after a Saab struck her patrol cruiser on Interstate 83 on June 21, 2011.

Rigby was standing on the shoulder of northbound Interstate 83 shortly after 9:20 a.m., watching a tow truck driver hook up a disabled car, when the Saab slammed into the back of her cruiser and drove it into her. Police said the pavement was wet and it was unclear what caused the Saab's driver to lose control before hitting the cruiser near Cold Spring Lane.

Rigby, 27 and about three and a half years out of the police academy, had positioned herself on the passenger side of the stranded vehicle, between it and the Jersey barrier, the approach officers are trained to use to avoid being struck by passing traffic.

A citywide dispatcher broadcast a "Signal 13," code for an officer in distress, at 9:28 a.m., and officers converged on the area searching for Rigby. "Did you find her? Did you find her?" a Northern District dispatcher asked over the radio as her voice grew shakier, according to a recording of the internal police communications later obtained by the Baltimore Sun. The first officer to reach the overpass radioed that someone had gone over the side, and Rigby broke her silence to confirm it. "This is 31," she said, using her patrol car's call number, before falling quiet again as fellow officers and a police helicopter organized her transport.

Rigby was rushed to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in critical condition and placed on life support before surgery. "Mostly every bone on her left side was fractured," a police spokesman said, including breaks to her face, leg and pelvis. She underwent several operations, including facial reconstruction, before being moved to a rehabilitation unit less than a week later.

The driver of the Saab, Robert R. Vanderford, 23, of Roland Park, was later convicted of traffic offenses including failing to control his speed and driving on a suspended license, court records show. A judge fined him $260, assessed three points against his license, ordered 250 hours of community service at a police station and, at Rigby's request, two days in jail, a term suspended after a few hours. Rigby also filed a civil lawsuit seeking damages over her injuries.

Rigby was unable to return to patrol and was forced into medical retirement, leaving the department in 2014. "Some days I think about it," she said at the time. "I don't understand why it happened. However, I'm grateful that I am alive." She later started a hat line to raise money for brain injury awareness.

The recording of the incident is roughly eight minutes of Baltimore police radio traffic, a logging tape capturing dispatchers and responding units as they searched the highway shoulder and coordinated Rigby's rescue after she went over the barrier.