After relentless clashes in the summer heat for more than two hours in full riot gear, with no breaks or food, one officer collapsed, the alarm went off immediately on police radios.
“We heard someone say something about a heart attack,” said Ch Insp Kelsey, “a couple of minutes later, I heard the cop’s name… And he was one of my cops on my van.”
It was one of Insp Dack’s best friends. He said: “He’s on the floor, he’s laying in his pants and socks and there’s two officers there sort of working on him. And at that point my heart sinks.”
Ch Insp Kelsey was one of the officers working on him, “I was just holding his hand and saying ‘you’re going to be alright, you’re alright.’ It was awful. I didn’t think he was going to make it”.
Paramedics had to navigate around the disorder to reach the officer, “but they came straight into the officer and started getting him right,” said Insp Dack, “my mind had gone, I would say, for that short period of time”.
Ch Insp Kelsey said as soon as her colleague was in the ambulance, she had to return to the line of disorder. “That night I went home I couldn’t sleep at all. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.”
Ch Insp Kelsey and Insp Dack’s colleague was treated in hospital and continues his recovery.
