Arizona highway trooper faces wrong-way driver head-on to make stop

PHOENIX — An Arizona highway trooper put himself in the path of a wrong-way driver on Interstate 10 near Tucson, the department said, and managed to stop the oncoming car before it hit anyone else.

The unidentified Arizona Department of Public Safety officer suffered minor injuries in the Aug. 14 road intervention.

The driver of the wrong-way car, an elderly woman who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was taken to a hospital. Her injuries weren’t life threatening.

The department said in a press release that the office began getting calls around 7:30 p.m. about a white car going east in westbound lanes near Avra Valley.

The patrolman was nearby helping a stranded motorist and went to find the wrong-way driver.

About 10 minutes later near Cortaro Road, the car was headed straight in the officer’s direction. He turned his SUV so that a front bumper would take the impact from the car’s front bumper.

The ensuing collision stopped the car.

The trooper, “protected the lives of many motorists while endangering his own,” Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Col. Frank Milstead said in a statement.

“I am proud of our brave trooper.”

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