Motorcycle Officer Out of Intensive Care

After three months under intensive care, injured Costa Mesa Police Officer Robert Baumgardner was transferred to an ordinary hospital room Friday, just in time for Christmas.

“He’s talking. He’s talking up a streak,” said his wife, Sally Gene Baumgardner, who has spent most of the three months waiting outside the intensive care unit of Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. Until recently, Baumgardner had been unable to speak and had communicated by pointing to letters on an alphabet board.

The release from intensive care is a major victory for the 39-year-old motorcycle officer, who was struck by a car while writing a routine traffic ticket in September and has been fighting his way back to life ever since.

Baumgardner, who suffered numerous broken bones and other injuries, followed by pneumonia and other respiratory complications, was slowly weaned from life-support systems last week.

“First the sedatives, then the respirator,” said Sally. “The chest tubes they removed one at a time, each day, and it took six days to get rid of those.

“He’s eating three square (meals) a day. And he’s standing up in a walker--for a couple of seconds.”

The move means the officer will be able to receive Christmas visitors, if only very briefly. His wife, Sally, hopes he will be well enough to go home in a few weeks. She said she planned to spend Christmas in the hospital.

“Just spend the day and look at him, and hold his hand--now that he can hold it back,” she said.