By Bill Laitner
Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — A police chase north of Detroit ended early Sunday when the fleeing driver’s car smacked into the side of a mobile home, knocking its elderly resident out of her TV chair, police said.
Now she’s in the hospital and he’s in jail, thanks to the fast action of pursuing cop, whose own patrol car had been smashed into earlier by the fleeing driver, said the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.
The pursuing deputy, despite having his own injuries, yanked the fleeing driver from the wreckage and took him into custody, then sensed that someone inside the trailer could be hurt -- so he kicked down the door and found its 76-year-old resident lying on the floor in need of medical care, Oakland County Sheriff Mike McCabe said in a news release.
Minutes later, firefighters and paramedics arrived to treat the woman and the officer. Both were taken to McLaren-Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, where the officer was treated and released but the elderly woman remained hospitalized Sunday, McCabe said.
As for the other driver? The 37-year-old Highland man, whose burgundy 2002 Chevrolet Malibu was apparently has been totaled, has questionable behavior to answer for – starting with allegedly rear-ending at high speed the patrol car as the officer was driving about 40 m.p.h., on southbound Milford Road, McCabe’s report said. After the rear-end collision, the suspect immediately did a U-turn and sped about a mile northbound, then turned into the Highland Greens Estates mobile home community, followed by the officer with his lights and siren activated, the report said.
The deputy gave chase through the residential area by following a “fluid trail” dripping from the rammer’s car until finding the Malibu driver’s car embedded in the side of the woman’s mobile home. The driver – who reeked of alcohol and had bloodshot eyes -- was transported to a nearby hospital for a blood draw to determine his level of intoxication, then relocated to a more modest setting: the Oakland County Jail, according to McCabe’s report.
The injured deputy is a 16-year police veteran, having joined the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office four years ago after serving as a Walled Lake police officer, McCabe said.
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