TRENTON, Ga. - "Now, when they start sending kids out," Heather Chance shouted to the Dade County High School band, "I need the fight song to be as good as possible."
Chance, the band's assistant director, didn't know exactly when the line of police vehicles would pull through the parking lot. The sheriff's office sent a schedule two days earlier, explaining their route to the schools and members of the community. They would arrive with Maj. Tommy Bradford around 10:30 a.m., loop through downtown Trenton and visit three other campuses before driving by the high school.
It was about 11:20 now, though, and they couldn't see the blue lights. The cars were moving slowly through town.
"He is a Dade County graduate, and it was his fight song," Chance told the band. "So it's going to mean a lot to a lot of people."
"Rest your faces right now."
"Do not get loud."
"We should start coming out soon. And when we do, we're going to start making some noise."
About 20 minutes later, a chain of cars, trucks and SUVs passed under a pair of bucket trucks, each holding an American flag. The cars pulled into the school's parking lot. Flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, horns, trombones, tubas and snare drums snapped into action. Students yelled. Driving a truck, Sheriff Ray Cross chanted "Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!" into an intercom.
Behind him, in the sixth of 25 cars, a Nissan Pathfinder, Bradford smiled. His right arm rested in a sling. He raised his left hand, covered partly in bandages, and waved.
About 2 miles south of the high school, on U.S. Highway 11, Bradford lay spike strips on the road on the afternoon of Aug. 7, after he heard reports of a car chase coming into town from Fort Payne, Alabama. After Bradford put down the trap, Lora Leann Wooten drove her truck into him, severing his left leg near his knee. Wooten later crashed in Trenton's city square, and she faces multiple charges in Georgia and Alabama.
Bradford, meanwhile, has been at Erlanger Health System and Siskin Hospital for physical rehabilitation the last three weeks. Cross coordinated Wednesday's homecoming greeting.
Among the students, a senior held a sign that said, "Welcome Home Aunt Mary & Uncle Tommy. We Love You!" Tressa Campbell, 17, said her family's spirits have improved over the last couple weeks, as Bradford's condition has gotten better. They have been overwhelmed by the meals and donations that members of the community provided. Residents also built a wheelchair ramp at his home in Rising Fawn.
"This is a big part of the recovery," Campbell said.
Bradford's sister-in-law, Candy Duvall, said news about the crash traveled fast in her family. Her husband is a school resource officer at Dade County High School. Mary Ann Bradford, meanwhile, is Cross' administrative assistant.
With Bradford's leg severed, a passerby stopped to apply pressure and slow the bleeding. Still, the family worried he would die.
"We're just grateful things are the way they are," said Gladys Duvall, Bradford's mother-in-law. "He could have had brain damage. This way, as he said, 'It's just a leg.'"
Well, it's a little more than that. Doctors had to place pins and a plate in his pelvis. They also put pins in fingers in his left hand. His shoulder is damaged, though doctors said it will heal without surgery. He broke the orbital bone around his eye, too, Gladys Duvall said.
She said the crash is the most difficult trial the family has experienced. Bradford and his wife have known each other since they were in school. They started dating after they both joined the sheriff's office. They have six children, including a 1-year-old foster child they adopted.
After the crash happened, Mary Ann Bradford rode to see her husband.
"When she saw his leg all over the road, she just buckled," Gladys Duvall said. "They had to step over pieces. That was the hardest part - not just for Tommy, but for my daughter. When something like that happens, they're still your little kids."
On Wednesday afternoon, electronic signs in front of the CVS and the old county courthouse welcomed Bradford home. Police blue line flags lined the streets.
Barbie Evans, owner of JB's Variety Store, began selling the flags two days after Wooten ran over Bradford. When she got to the store that day, she said customers were already waiting outside. They planned to buy decorations as a sign of support for the major.
"They wanted blue ribbons," Evans said. "They wanted blue flowers. They wanted blue everything."
She then announced on the store's Facebook page that she would sell a slew of goods at the store to honor Bradford, with half the sales going to his family. She sold police memorial flags for $9.99 and black and blue bows for $6.50. In the last three weeks, she said she has sold 400 flags and 600 bows. As of last Friday, she said the sales have raised $3,144 for Bradford's family. Customers have put another $277 in a bucket, which is also going to the Bradfords.
Some residents wanted their flags lining the streets, like they do with American flags around holidays. In those cases, Evans left the flags for Trenton city employees. The city's street department placed the decorations around town. But they ran out of flag poles. Street Commissioner Monda Wooten said they then took some metal poles, punched holes in the tops and plopped the flags down, adding them to the line of decorations awaiting Bradford's arrival.
Patrick Ridge, a trustee from the Dade County Jail, helped put up the flags. Ridge was arrested in April after Trenton police stopped him on Interstate 59 and found five grams of methamphetamine inside the car. He's gotten to know Bradford over the last couple months. Sometimes, inmates will sit by the sally port in the jail, and Bradford will join them. He didn't talk down to them, Ridge said.
On Aug. 7, he was working on a ditch in downtown Trenton when Bradford sped off from the sheriff's office. A couple minutes later, he heard Wooten slam her car into a power pole nearby. Then, officers swarmed her. Then, Ridge heard Bradford was in danger.
That night, he said, jail officers allowed him and other trustees to gather in a circle behind the jail. Together they prayed for Bradford.
"All of us inmates," he said Wednesday, waiting for Bradford, "we care. They're just doing their jobs."
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.