Ex-Harford Co. exec: Report of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Former Harford County Executive Jim Harkins (R) returns home after a month in the hospital and in rehab after a serious accident. Photo from Harkins Facebook page.

Jim Harkins wants you to know: He’s alive and doing quite well, thank you.

The former Harford County executive was in a terrible accident this summer that put him in Maryland’s shock-trauma unit and in rehab for almost a month. He is at home recovering, and he will require some surgeries on his legs this fall.

But he’s doing a lot better than some people think.

Shortly after his accident, his family starting receiving scary but well-meaning calls from people expressing sympathy over his death. More recently, there have been offers of help from acquaintances who heard Harkins had both of his legs amputated.

“It runs the gamut of rumors,” Harkins said in an interview. “So I thought, ‘I need to fix this.'”

Here’s what did happen: On July 26, the 70-year-old former state and local official was riding a motorized three-wheel motorcycle on Route 165 near his home in Whiteford when he blacked out. He hit a tree, flipped over two times, and then plunged into a deep ravine.

A local resident, Loddy Williams, was driving by and thought he saw something, but he wasn’t sure, Harkins said. Williams asked his 9-year-old son if he saw anything, and the youth confirmed that a vehicle had fallen into the ditch. The motorist called 911.

“This guy literally saved my life,” Harkins said. “I was down in that hole. They wouldn’t have found me for a month of Sundays.”

Williams did not respond to messages this week.

Harkins doesn’t want to pretend that things have been easy since his accident. He lost 30 pounds while recovering in shock trauma and then going through rehab at Johns Hopkins Bay View Medical Center. He needs to use a scooter right now. He did have to have a piece of a foot amputated, but with a prosthetic, he expects to be able to walk normally.

“My flip-flop days might be over,” he laughed.

Harkins has a long history of public service. He’s a former sergeant in the Harford County Sheriff’s Department and was a one-time chair of the Harford County Republican County Central Committee. He served in the House of Delegates from 1991 to 1998, and was elected county executive in 1998.

In 2005, then-Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R), a former colleague of Hawkins in the House, tapped him to run the Maryland Environmental Service, the quasi-governmental agency that seeks contracts for large environmental clean-up and infrastructure projects. When he retired in 2016, he was replaced by Roy McGrath, a close adviser to then-Gov. Larry Hogan (R) who ran afoul of the law and died in a shoot-out with police in 2023 after being on the lam for three weeks, missing the beginning of his federal corruption trial.

Asked where he thinks the rumors about his demise or grievous injuries came from, Harkins said he doesn’t have a clue. Harford County Republicans are in the midst of a civil war , but Harkins said he isn’t a part of it.

“I don’t think it’s escalated that far,” he said. “I’m so disengaged in local politics right now. I don’t have a dog in that hunt.”

Harkins and his wife, Debbie, have two children and seven grandchildren, with an eighth on the way.

When he and his family think about how lucky he was, Harkins said, “it’s gotten a little bit profound.”