COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. — We have a special Pass It On this week, from one police officer to his former partner, who has been off work for months and weeks at a time and has had surgery after surgery after he was injured on the job.
Collierville officer Kenneth Stokes reached out to WREG to help his former partner, Officer Michael Magnuson.
Magnuson was critically injured September 24, 2022, outside a Collierville hotel trying to stop a shooting suspect. As he clung to the hood of a car, the suspect ran over Magnuson.
“He’s been off work for a couple of surgeries. He was injured on the job a couple of years ago, was out for maybe a year or so,” Stokes said. “Returned to work in January and learned he had to be out again for more surgery. So I want to just help him out and pass it on.”
Stokes explained that $600 could help his friend a lot.
“He’s not working right now. And he has doctor’s appointments. He has to travel out of town to go back and forth. So the commute just to make his doctor’s appointments. I just figured you know, anything would help lighten the burden on him right now,” Stokes said.
When we met up with Officer Magnuson, he told us about his latest surgery.
“They had to cut me open a couple of times, and I ended up with some hernias on the big incision. So I had to put a big piece of mesh in there to fix the hernias and then my elbow. The surgeon said when I got ran over, there was a bunch of scar tissue that built up, so it was starting to press on the nerve and I was losing feeling in my hand,” Magnuson said.
He doesn’t recall getting run over. He just tremembers the initial call going out, but he recounted that night from evidence he’s seen.
“I’ve seen the video,” Magnuson said. “So what it was, we were looking for a suspect involved in a shooting, and then I get hit by his car and I get pushed up on the hood, and then the vehicle runs me over with both tires going over my chest. So then it broke most of my ribs.”
Ha also broke his back in five spots and had surgeries on both shoulders.
Magnuson said he’s ready to get back to work. He’s scheduled to go back in September if doctors clear him.
He’s thankful for the many in the community who’ve supported him, including his buddy, Officer Stokes.
“He was my trainee for a little while, so we rode together for a while,” he said.
They were partners for awhile and likely friends for life.
Officer Magnuson says he’s not only looking forward to going back to work but he also plans to rejoin the overnight shift — the shift where he was injured.