Body camera footage released from the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office, FL., shows the moments a deputy was brutally stabbed in the neck by a distressed woman involved in a vehicle rollover.

On the evening of March 23rd, 2022, Deputy Cody Colangelo observed an abandoned vehicle involved in a rollover crash in the 12500 block of South Indian River Drive. Official reports indicate that after arriving on scene, deputy Colangelo searched the surrounding area, where he later found the driver of the vehicle sitting under an embankment.

As shown in the footage, deputy Colangelo confronted the female subject and began questioning what happened. After a brief confrontation, the female subject quickly turned and lunged at deputy Colangelo with a knife, stabbing him in the neck. The female subject began fleeing the area, and in response deputy Colangelo discharged his service weapon a single time, missing the suspect. Despite sustaining a severe injury to his neck, Colangelo chased after the suspect while simultaneously applying pressure to his wound.

Additional deputies were radioed in to join the chase, where they eventually located the suspect hiding under another embankment.

Deputy Colangelo was rushed to HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital, where he underwent a two-hour surgery during which doctors replaced part of the artery in his neck with one from his leg. In a later statement, Dr. Christopher Binette, the doctor who operated on Colangelo stated, "Usually, people don't do well with that injury. If the knife had a downward trajectory, very, very different story and he probably wouldn't have made it to the hospital.".

The suspect was later booked and taken into custody. The female subject was later identified as 21-year-old Leigha Michelle Day. Investigators believe Day was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the stabbing. Currently, Day is at St. Lucie County Jail on a charge of premeditated first-degree attempted murder.