Court of Appeals of North Carolina March 18, 1997, COA96-680 (Thacker v. City of Winston-Salem)

WYNN, Judge.

In August 1992, plaintiff, a Winston-Salem police officer, suffered a violent coughing attack and blacked out after placing his car in drive to leave the parking lot where he had stopped to talk to another officer. His patrol car then travelled down an embankment, knocked over a fire hydrant and came to rest in the median of an adjacent road.