Runaway Car
Minnesota State Patrol Trooper Zach Gruver helped bring the runaway SUV driven by Sam Dutcher, right, to a crash-induced stop when the teen was unable to slow the vehicle after it unexpectedly accelerated.
Sam Dutcher had just finished running errands when the 18-year-old’s Honda Pilot suddenly began to accelerate, even though his foot wasn’t on the gas pedal. The brake wouldn’t work, he couldn’t shift into neutral, and before long, the runaway SUV was speeding into the western Minnesota countryside with no way to stop.
“I had the brake to the floor,” Dutcher said Thursday, but the SUV kept going faster and faster, eventually reaching 120 mph.
A last-ditch plan averted disaster that September evening — a trooper sped in front of the Honda and Dutcher was told to crash into the rear of his squad car, allowing it to ease safely to a stop moments before reaching a dangerous intersection.
“That was really all I could think of that was going to get him stopped in time,” Minnesota Trooper Zach Gruver said. “We kind of just ran out of time and distance. I really didn’t know of any other way.”