Published on Saturday, February 4, 2006
in the Daytona Beach News-Journal

Return home starts trooper's recovery

Darryl Haywood Jr. and his mother are headed back to Flagler County this morning where the 20-year-old newcomer to the FHP faces a long, arduous recovery.

"He had a brain injury, as well as his concussion," Linda Sharpe Haywood said of her son Friday. "He's going to undergo extensive therapy."

Haywood was released from the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital where he spent several days after his Jan. 22 accident on Florida's Turnpike, near Hollywood. Seconds after a traffic stop, his patrol car was rammed by a truck that veered off the interstate. The cruiser slammed into a guardrail then crashed into the car of the motorist Haywood had pulled over. He was airlifted to Jackson Memorial in critical condition.

Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Jorge Delahoz, a spokesman for the turnpike system, said Haywood is doing well, but he noticed the trooper was having some difficulty speaking at a press conference Friday morning just after he was released from Ryder.

"His motor skills were delayed," Delahoz said. "But he's going to be all right and I would love to see him come back."

Whether Haywood will be back in the khaki uniform of the FHP anytime soon is still questionable.

His mother would like him to go back to school, but said she realizes her son's future will be up to him.

"He was always very good in science," Linda Sharpe Haywood said Friday. "He had majored in pharmacology at (Florida A&M University).

"My wishes are that he return to school, but you know how that is. It will be up to him," she said.

It may be a difficult choice, Delahoz said, only because being a police officer is in "Haywood's blood."

Mother Linda Sharpe Haywood was an officer with the New York City police and so was Haywood's father, Darryl Haywood Sr.

"That's how Darryl's parents met," DeLahoz said. "He has other relatives that are police officers also."

The elder Haywood was killed in October 2004 on Interstate 4 as he pursued a motorcyclist who was racing along the highway at more than 100 mph, FHP officials said. Donald Williams, 39, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

In Haywood Jr.'s case, charges have not been filed against truck driver Robert Frederick Dimmie pending a toxicology test, Delahoz said.

On the trip home to Palm Coast today, Linda Sharpe Haywood said she and her son will have some company -- Darryl Jr.'s pit bull puppy.