Higginson didn't get off easy, either. He was tossed through the air like a rag doll in the crash, and needed more than 200 stitches to close jagged gashes on his face.
Hayes, though, "was unrecognizable," said his wife, Maria. "Later on, we heard the word around the hospital was that he wasn't going to make it that night."
But somehow, he made it through that harrowing first night, when minutes felt like hours and his friends and families braced themselves for the worst.
He made it through the months of rehabilitation, relearning how to walk and talk.
On Monday, the first anniversary of his brush with death, Richard Hayes was at work, in uniform and able to look back on his whole improbable story - including the weird twist about the fake priest who comforted his family during their darkest moments.
"It's amazing I lived through that," said Hayes, 29. "You think you're invincible, but your life can end at any time."
The eight-year veteran of the force has no memory of what happened to him last summer.
"It's just a story that is told to me," he said. "The last thing I can remember is going to the zoo with my family a week before."
Police have said that on the night of the crash, Hayes and Higginson arrested Edwin Alizea and his cousin Jose Marrero for smoking pot after stopping Alizea in Frankford on suspicion of DUI. The cousins were cuffed and sitting in the back of a cop car while Hayes and Higginson inspected Alizea's red Geo Prizm about 1:30 a.m. on Aramingo Avenue near Church Street.
Alizea, who was later sentenced to three days to six months in prison, told police that a Honda Ridgeline truck came speeding onto the scene and smashed into the Prizm, which Hayes was leaning into.
Police charged the driver of the truck, John Cusick, 20, of Bristol, Bucks County, with aggravated assault while driving under the influence.
