‘Life-altering’: Hillsborough corporal, deputy rammed by car speak 1 year later

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — It was on Nov. 9, 2023, when Sheriff Chad Chronister said two of his deputies were left fighting for their lives after they responded to a 911 call.

"Everything that happened that day, not a lot of thinking happened," Deputy Manny Santos said. "It was a lot of training that went into play."

The chaos was caught on camera, as deputies said then-28-year-old Ralph Bouzy was having a mental health crisis and decided to drive away.

Moments later, video shows him whip around the corner, aiming his car toward Santos and Cpl. Carlos Brito, and hit the gas.

"Life-altering," Brito said.

He said all of the bones from his knee to his ankle were shattered and as he was lying on the ground, screaming in pain, his wife Facetimed him.

"She calls me every morning to say goodbye to the kids as they're going to school," he said. "She always facetimes me, so I declined."

"I asked my deputy to call her so I could talk to her," he said. "I told her I had been involved in a very minor accident and I'll talk to her later."

A few days later, he woke up in the hospital and was finally able to come face-to-face with his children.

"I don't remember a lot, but the first one that I saw was my oldest, and just to be able to see her and to know that I was alive," Brito said. "It meant everything."

"Without my wife and kids, I don't know if I'd still be here," he said.

Brito had to undergo 12 surgeries, and said, though his recovery has been anything but easy, he's continuing to defy the odds one day at a time.

"From not moving my leg to being able to go from wheelchair to crutches to using a cane and walking a little bit, I'd say I'm doing OK," he said.

Santos was also seriously injured.

"Pretty much my knee kind of exploded in a way," he said.

For Santos, nothing was going to stand in his way of getting back in uniform.

"Trying to build a deputy back up in that timeframe, it was stressful," he said.

Santos said even after one to two hours of physical therapy, he would go home and continue fighting.

"I would still go home and train some more and figure out other ways, put my tact vest on, throw myself on the ground, try to get back up to see how it feels, see how my knee bends," he said.

Hard work Santos said paid off.

"I was pretty proud to say that I'm a deputy of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office," he said. "Would I do it again? Would I come back out onto the road and be a deputy and continue on in my career?"

"I mean, you can see how I'm dressed now," Santos said. "I clearly chose to stay."

As for Brito, he's taking his journey one day at a time.

"There is hesitation," he said. "If something dramatic like that happened to you, of course, you think twice."

"I want to come back," Brito said. "My goal is to come back and that's what I've been working on for the last couple of months."

"To say that I'm going to jump back into patrol, I would be lying to you," he said.