TN DEPUTY COMA, VENTILATOR AFTER BRUTAL ATTACK
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline
4.2 • 8.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Saturday night, 10:15 p.m., Knox County, Tennessee, 911 gets a report of shots fired on Stanley Road.
When deputies arrive, a woman claiming her "crazy ex" is on the property points officers toward a wooded area. Announcing their presence with shouts of "Sheriff's Office," a defiant voice from the woods curses the deputies. Someone begins throwing rocks.
The dark, wooded area provides cover for the suspect, who claims to have a gun.
Deputy Swanger can't get a clear view. Swanger orders the suspect to "show me your hands." As he enters the brush, he is met with an ambush of rocks. Swanger is hit full force on the head and falls to the ground.
Deputies rush to Swanger, who is "knocked out," and drag him from the woods to safety. A bloody gash is clearly visible. Deputy Swanger is unsteady on his feet.
Swanger is admitted into the ICU at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, where he ends up on a ventilator in a coma.
The suspect, 44-year-old Christopher Michael Hensley, is caught and charged.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Deputy Dalton Swanger - Knox County Sheriff's Office (suffered serious injury to his head after suspect hit him with a rock
- Stephania Pumphrey - Girlfriend of Deputy Swanger
- Deputy Matthew Kirchner - Former partner of Deputy Dalton Swanger
- Dr. Kendall Crowns - Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth), NEW Podcast "Mayhem in the morgue" Lecturer: Burnett School of Medicine at TCU (Texas Christian University)
- Dave Mack - Investigative Reporter, 'Crime Stories'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:04.8 | Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. |
| 0:10.8 | A Tennessee deputy in a coma and on a ventilator fighting for his life after a brutal attack. |
| 0:22.7 | When he answers a call along with his partner to help a woman instead, he has to be dragged |
| 0:29.0 | out of bushes, his head bleeding and ends up fighting for his life. |
| 0:38.6 | Why? |
| 0:39.8 | Good evening. |
| 0:40.8 | I'm Nancy Grace. |
| 0:41.7 | This is Crime Stories. |
| 0:42.9 | I want to thank you for being with us. |
| 0:44.8 | For years, Deputy Dalton Swanger served with unwavering dedication at the Knox County Sheriff's Office, |
| 0:51.2 | a steady force protecting his community. |
| 0:53.8 | But one fateful call would |
| 0:55.3 | thrust him and his team into a life-threatening confrontation that would change everything. |
| 1:01.5 | We are being told that Deputy Swanger needs a very complicated and complex surgery that is |
| 1:08.5 | offered at just a handful of hospitals in our country. |
| 1:13.3 | Due to a trachea closing, he's going to have to have a tracheal resection because of a brutal |
| 1:22.2 | injury he obtained on duty. |
| 1:29.9 | And this is where it all starts. Listen. |
| 1:36.9 | Saturday night, 10.15 p.m. Knox County, Tennessee, 9-1-1 gets a report of shots fired on Stanley Road. |
| 1:45.2 | Deputies, followed by On Patrol Live TV show camera crew, are greeted on scene by a woman claiming she has a crazy ex and pointing officers toward a wooded area announcing their presence with shouts of sheriff's office a defiant voice from the woods |
| 1:50.7 | curses the deputies and begins throwing rocks call about shots fired in knox county tennessee |
... |
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