A teenager from North Dakota says he thought he was “going to die” when his SUV sped up on its own to more than 110mph (177km/h) and wouldn’t slow down – but he saved himself by intentionally crashing into the back of a Minnesota state trooper’s patrol cruiser.
As the North Dakota television station WDAY told it, 18-year-old Sam Dutcher was driving near Harwood – relatively close to the state’s border with Minnesota – as night fell on 17 September. His Honda Pilot suddenly accelerated on its own to 113mph, a speed so high that it would be virtually impossible to survive crashing.
Dutcher attempted to stop the car but it careened on, and he called police for help as he headed through Clay county, Minnesota, about 40 miles (64km) away.
Video from the inside of a patrol cruiser being driven by a local sheriff’s deputy who responded to Dutcher’s call showed the law enforcement official asking: “If you hit the brakes, nothing happens?”
Indeed nothing would happen when Dutcher tried that. He also could not flip the car off or put it in neutral. At that point, “my mind started to go to, ‘I’m going to die tonight,’” Dutcher said in an interview with WDAY.
He also described thinking: “This thing is accelerating – [and] my foot is not on the gas” pedal.
Police officers first tried to halt Dutcher’s SUV by laying down devices known as Stop Sticks, which are designed to deflate car tires. But that didn’t work, so they decided on an alternate course of action as Dutcher was about three miles from reaching a T-shaped intersection at the end of the road that they were on, WDAY reported.
A deputy instructed Dutcher to intentionally run into the back of a Minnesota state patrol trooper’s squad car. Meanwhile, the trooper, Zach Gruver, sped up, positioned himself in front of Dutcher and activated his cruiser’s anti-collision sensors.
“Yes, run into the back of his car,” the deputy reassured an uncertain Dutcher, as video from the officer’s cruiser showed.
Dutcher did as he was told. He rammed his SUV into the rear of Gruver’s cruiser, and they both eventually came to a stop. The white-knuckle episode reportedly lasted about 20 minutes and concluded with no one being physically injured.
In a statement on Facebook on Tuesday, the Minnesota state patrol said: “It’s not very often a sheriff’s deputy orders you to hit a state patrol vehicle, but hitting trooper Zach Gruver’s squad [car] helped save 18-year-old Sam Dutcher’s life.”
Gruver told ABC outlets: “I don’t think I did anything special. Really what I think it comes down to is I just had the fastest car and was able to get in front of him.”
Authorities have not said what caused Dutcher’s car to accelerate on its own. What is known as sudden unintended acceleration can generally occur for a number of reasons ranging from mistakenly pressing a pedal in the car to mechanical or electrical problems with the vehicle, as the Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Honda later distributed a statement to ABC News, which said the car manufacturer was “grateful” that Dutcher was safe and expressed gratitude for “the role of law enforcement in helping [him] stop the vehicle”. The statement from Honda also said: “We cannot speculate about the issue the customer experienced without a detailed inspection, and we encourage the family to have the vehicle towed to an authorized Honda dealer for inspection if that has not already occurred.”
Dutcher told WDAY how it eventually dawned on him that his brush with death “really just happened”.
Nonetheless, he had since returned to his classes at Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he is studying mechanics.
