Calamity Cop Has Plenty of Luck, All Bad : Accidents: Laguna Beach Officer Jon Fehlman, a regular in emergency rooms, has been bonked, battered and beaten. But he keeps coming back for more.

LAGUNA BEACH — Considering the mishaps and mini-disasters that stalk him, it’s a wonder Laguna Beach Police Officer Jon Fehlman doesn’t limit his activities to knocking on wood and tossing salt over his shoulder.

In the past three years, Fehlman was rear-ended by a car, hit head-on by a truck and injured his knee when a police car door slammed into his leg.

There’s more.

His leg was broken by a flying bumper that boomeranged through the air when his car was hit by a drunk driver while he was arresting suspects at the side of the road. As he dropped to the ground, Fehlman fractured his tailbone.

In one year, he underwent surgeries to repair his knee, leg and spine.

And, oh yeah, he added while recounting the misadventures that have riddled his career: Did he mention the time the bullet ricocheted off a target and dinged him in the head?

“If you don’t laugh about it,” said Fehlman, who admits he sidesteps ladders and runs from black cats, “it’s too much to really comprehend.”

“He’s had his share of incidents for a small community police department, that’s for sure,” said Laguna Beach Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. “Some people say they don’t like to stand too close to him because they don’t know what’s going to happen next--whether something falls off a building and hits him or a black cloud rains on him.”

Back at work and six months since his last calamity, Fehlman is looking at the bright side of his harrowing experiences. It was great, he said, when the “fan mail” began to pour in from as far away as Tasmania after his plight hit the press last year.

And then there were those happy months recovering at home and playing “Point To Daddy’s Owies” with his three young sons. “They’re getting quite good at the game,” he said.

The barrage of adversity even seems to have strengthened his relationship with his wife, said Fehlman, who has been on the force eight years.

“It’s been tough on us, but I think it’s also brought us a lot closer,” he said. “She laughs along with me. She knows all the people in the emergency rooms by first name.”

Last month, in a show of support for their seemingly jinxed comrade, the 31-year-old Fehlman was honored by his peers with the “Blue Knight” award for outstanding work as a patrol officer.

“I think they gave it to me more for endurance than performance,” he said. “I just keep coming back.”

Actually, Fehlman’s knack for being--as the chief puts it--”in the wrong place at the wrong time” dates back to 1986, when he became the second city officer to fatally shoot someone in the line of duty.

In that incident, Fehlman said he arrived at the scene of a fight between two other officers and a jail escapee who had wrestled a gun from one of the officers and pointed it at Fehlman. Support from his co-workers helped him survive that crisis, Fehlman said.

Another serious event in Fehlman’s life was the February, 1991, automobile accident. He was stopped for a pedestrian when his patrol car was rear-ended, partially paralyzing his right side and causing him to be rushed by helicopter to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center.

After being off work for seven months, Fehlman was back on duty in December, 1991, when he spotted what he describes as a stolen car carrying gang members with guns. He stopped the vehicle, flung open his car door and started to jump out when the heavy door slammed back into his knee.

“That was quite an adventure,” said Fehlman, who managed to stay on his feet as he handcuffed the suspects. “Then, after the adrenaline wore off a little bit, the pain cut through.”

Past the knee surgery and back on duty one month, in May, 1992, Fehlman was standing at the edge of Laguna Canyon Road patting down three suspects in a possible hit-and-run accident when a motorist hit his police car, shearing off the bumper, which sailed through the air and sliced into Fehlman’s leg.

That was strictly “a freak accident,” Purcell said. “Thank God it wasn’t any higher, it might have cut him in half.” Surgeons patched Fehlman’s leg back together with pins and screws.

Finally, six months ago, Fehlman was returning from an Orange County Gang Investigator’s Assn. meeting in Anaheim when a catering truck slammed head-on into his 1988 Honda Accord.

“Folks have asked me if I think I’m accident-prone,” Fehlman said. “But to be accident-prone I’d be falling on a sidewalk and breaking my leg. These things are all just beyond my control.”

Purcell said the last city police officer to suffer such a string of misfortunes was nicknamed “Crash” and hit cars, ran into poles, and took out the side of a planter box when he turned a corner. He left the department in 1981 and went on to become a golf pro, the chief said.

But Fehlman, who is also president of the Laguna Beach Police Employees’ Assn., said he has no intention of giving up police work. In fact, said his wife, Denise, the work keeps him going.

“Any one of these injuries could have stopped certain people from returning to the job . . . but he’s had so many and he loves his job so much,” she said. “That’s what’s given him the determination to do the physical therapy, his love for the job.”

Besides, he may be getting luckier. In the last automobile accident, the car was totaled but Fehlman suffered only minor cuts and scrapes.

“Nothing’s happened since then,” he said. “Knock on wood.”