The Den­ver police offi­cer who was hit by a fire truck dur­ing the Nuggets’ cham­pi­onship parade last year has returned to work on the department’s SWAT team, becom­ing the only amputee-offi­cer on the city’s 1,500-member force.

“I tru­ly, in my mind, was start­ing my rehab even with the truck on top of me,” Sgt. Justin Dodge said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence Thurs­day. “I’m an incred­i­bly aver­age per­son, but the one thing I do have is, I have dri­ve. And I knew in my heart, this was not going to be my last operation.”

Dodge’s left leg was ampu­tat­ed below the knee after a Den­ver fire truck rolled over it as he walked beside the truck among throngs of peo­ple dur­ing the Nuggets’ parade on June 15.

He was cleared to return to work in a lim­it­ed capac­i­ty on Feb. 8, he said Thurs­day, and rejoined the SWAT team, which has been his assign­ment for 19 of his 27 years as a Den­ver police officer.

“I’m basi­cal­ly doing every­thing that the team would be expect­ed to do oper­a­tional­ly, I’m just doing it at a train­ing lev­el right now,” he said.

Dodge under­went eight surg­eries after he was hit by the fire truck, which was car­ry­ing Nuggets play­ers includ­ing Niko­la Jokic and Jamal Mur­ray. He’s had good days and bad since return­ing to work, he said.

“There are days when every­thing is going right and the pros­thet­ic is fit­ting cor­rect­ly, sleep has been good, food has been good and all that, so you feel great,” he said. “And then there are days when you have set­backs… I go from a very capa­ble per­son ready to get back, team leader oper­a­tional­ly on a SWAT team, and at the end of the night, that leg comes off, and I’m on a walk­er. So it’s that dichoto­my of these two worlds that I live in where, I’m out there, doing this, but (that) is also one of the real­i­ties as well.”

Although he is the sole amputee on Denver’s police force, he is not the first or only amputee in Col­orado law enforce­ment. Col­orado Springs police Offi­cer Ben Lunak, whose leg was par­tial­ly ampu­tat­ed, joined the depart­ment in 2018 and is still on the job, spokesman Ira Cronin said. Also, the Col­orado Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion is led by direc­tor Chris Schae­fer, who is also a leg amputee.

“I’m not the least bit sur­prised Justin has reached the point where he’s able to rejoin Denver’s SWAT Team,” Schae­fer said in a state­ment Fri­day. “As a fel­low amputee, I know how long and hard the recov­ery process is, (and) how impor­tant it is for your phys­i­cal and men­tal health to con­tin­ue the work you love. Justin and I became friends after his acci­dent and his pos­i­tive atti­tude isn’t just impres­sive, it’s inspirational.”

Dodge was tapped to throw a first pitch at the Col­orado Rock­ies’ home open­er Fri­day, an hon­or he said came as a sur­prise. He hopes his return to the force will inspire oth­ers to take con­trol of their lives.

“I’m try­ing to be an exam­ple that if you do that, with a good sup­port sys­tem, with a belief that you can do it, and putting in the work, that you can accom­plish great things, even through tragedy,” he said.

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