‘I won’t give up’: Injured, retired Trafalgar officer hopes to keep insurance

TRAFALGAR, Ind. — A Trafalgar officer injured in the line of duty fears his family will be left without health insurance.

Dustin Moody, a former officer with the Trafalgar Police Department, is hoping his town will support him and his family today and in the future after he ended up in a wheelchair serving and protecting his community.

“I won’t give up,” Moody, a husband and father of two, said. “There is no other option.”

Moody has been spending time at the Trafalgar Town hall making and at times pleading his case.

On June 25, 2022, Moody suffered devastating injuries while trying to pull over a driver. Both Moody and the driver of the truck crashed into the tree line of an intersection. The driver died and Moody was left with paralysis from the waist down.

He spent several months in two hospitals recovering and rehabbing before he went home.

“The reason I went to work every day was to care of my family. I took care of my family,” Moody said. “I took care of my community in every way that I could and now I don’t have health insurance for my family. I have two young boys aged six and three.”

Based on his broken ribs, a shattered pelvis and two compressed vertebrae into the spinal cord, Moody is considered catastrophically injured.

“No matter there are three officers in the history of Indiana who’ve been labelled “catastrophic.” I’m the third,” Moody said. “The other two officers have been blessed that their families and themselves both receive health insurance from the agency and they receive the same medical coverage as other full-time officers continue to receive up to age of 65.”

Currently, Metro Police is the agency providing health insurance to the two officers injured in the line of duty and their immediate family members.

Jessica Jones is the President of the Trafalgar Town Council.

“Surrounding community policies typically only cover officers up until Medicare age during disability,” Jones said.

While she expressed support for her town’s police, Jones also raised questions on whether the town can afford the health insurance that Moody and his family need.

“I’m following recommendations of our town attorney on how we draft language so that Trafalgar can possibly cover his wife and children,” Jones said.

Jones and the rest of the town council voted in January to pay for Moody’s individual insurance from January through March.

“I hope by all of us working together maybe there is some ground that we can discuss solutions to this,” Jones said.