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A Texas police officer was stuck by a car during a traffic stop. Pictured above is an officer making a late night traffic stop January 25, 2005 in Bossier City, LA. Getty Images

Dramatic footage revealed July 26 showed a police officer being propelled into the air by a speeding car during a routine traffic stop last month. The incident happened after the Fort Worth officer pulled over the driver on Interstate 30 in Texas. It started to go viral Monday.

Officer Matthew Lesell approached the driver side window of the car he pulled over during the July 7 stop. Dashcam footage taken from Lesell’s car showed another car whizzing by, crashing into the stationary car on the side, then hitting Lesell, which sent him airborne. The incident occurred on the shoulder of the Interstate highway.

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Lesell survived the crash, however, he suffered multiple injuries like a fractured vertebra and a hyperextended foot. Lesell was put on leave from work for a month.

He was thankful he survived.

"Every time I watch [the video], I’m still surprised it was not worse," Lesell told the Star-Telegram Monday. "My job is going to accidents and seeing horrific events, and I’ve seen accidents that don’t look nearly that bad, but there were worse injuries. I’m lucky with how it turned out."

The crash occurred around 3 a.m. due to a suspected drunk driver, according to police reports. The suspect's car hit the stationary car first, diminishing the hit to Lesell, officer Jimmy Pollozani told the Star-Telegram.

"If the suspect didn’t hit the other car first, we would have been planning a funeral instead," Pollozani said.

Lesell recanted the night of the incident to a local new station last week, citing the exact moment the car impacted him. He got up and walked to the side of the road and called for help.

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"Next thing I knew I was flying through the air," Lesell told KXAS-TV, a Dallas NBC affiliate last Wednesday. "It felt like I was spinning through a washing machine. And then telling myself, 'Hey, you're in the middle of the road. You need to get out of the road.'"

Lesell rolled onto his back, lifted into the air, and then careened back down to the ground. To avoid oncoming traffic, he stumbled off to the side of the road. Lesell talked about the pain he experienced afterward.

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Video showed a Texas officer struck by a drunk driver during a traffic stop. Pictured above are San Bruno police officers stop cars at a DUI checkpoint Nov. 27, 2006 in San Bruno, California. Getty Images

"Your body goes into trauma mode," he said. "Pain-wise, you don’t feel much. You just know something bad happened and the body does amazing things to limit the pain. All I knew was that I was hit."

Lesell doubled back to hold the drunk driver who struck him until backup officers arrived on the scene.

"From all my training, whether it be the Marine Corps, or through the academy, the worst thing to do is be down and out of the fight," Lesell said.

Suspected drunk driver Mike Mitchell, 34, was the one who struck Lesell that night, according to police reports. Police charged Mitchell with a second-degree felony, intoxication assault causing serious bodily injury to a police officer, according to Tarrant County court records.

Car accidents ranked among the top causes of death for police officers in the field, according to a report released in 2016. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund studied the fatalities of 684 police officers over five years and found that 272 officers died from a car crash or a direct hit by a car.

"A large number of the crashes investigated were not related to either a call for service or a case of self-initiated activity," the report said.