2 CHP Officers Splattered With AIDS-Tainted Blood at Accident Scene

Two California Highway Patrol officers may have been exposed to the AIDS virus when they treated a victim of an automobile accident in Mission Viejo on Wednesday, a CHP spokesman said Friday.

Officers Tom Sollie and Bob Petracheck were told that the 40-year-old accident victim had AIDS after they treated him and he was taken to Mission Regional Hospital in Mission Viejo, CHP spokesman Alvin R. Yamaguchi said.

“When they found out, they were scared and didn’t want to talk about it,” Yamaguchi said, adding that Sollie, who had an open cut on his hand at the time, was very concerned that he may have been exposed to the virus that causes the fatal affliction.

The officers were not wearing rubber gloves when they treated John Albert Bodish of Los Angeles at the scene of the accident on the San Diego Freeway, Yamaguchi said, adding, “The officers got blood all over them.”

Bodish suffered internal wounds, a broken right arm and the loss of skin on his left forearm. Once it was learned that Bodish had AIDS, nurses at the hospital “scrubbed the officers until they were raw” to remove the blood from their skin, Yamaguchi said.

Hospital officials said they could not confirm whether Bodish had AIDS because of state confidentiality laws prohibiting doctors from releasing such information without a patient’s consent, hospital spokeswoman Jan Walker said.

But Walker said Bodish remained in the hospital Friday and was listed in satisfactory condition.

Yamaguchi said Friday that CHP officers are often expected to provide first aid at accident scenes. “They’re supposed to wear gloves, but when you see a guy hanging from a car, you don’t always have time,” he explained.

The officers will file reports on the incident and will take blood tests to determine whether they have contracted the disease, he added.

The accident occurred at about 11 p.m. Wednesday while Bodish was traveling north on Interstate 5 and swerved off the road near the Alicia Parkway off-ramp. His Nissan Maxima hit an asphalt berm, skidded up a landscaped slope, then flipped over, partially throwing Bodish out of the car sunroof, CHP investigators said.

Bodish was later arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and an investigation is pending, Yamaguchi said.

Several emergency police, fire and medical workers have been exposed to the AIDS virus while treating accident victims, but according to national statistics, no emergency worker in the United States has contracted the disease.

Recent examples include two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who in January were splattered with blood from a man with AIDS-Related Complex after shooting him in the cheek with a stun-type dart gun. In 1985, a Los Angeles County firefighter administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a car-crash victim who was later discovered to have AIDS.