A ten year veteran trooper with the Arizona Department of Public Safety (ADPS) has been hospitalized following a collision early Thursday morning on westbound Interstate 10 at 43rdavenue.
The trooper, who has been assigned to the DPS motorcycle district for the past eight years, had stopped a violator and was standing next to his motorcycle in the right emergency shoulder. A mini-van entering the freeway from 43rd Avenue drifted into the emergency shoulder striking the trooper and his motorcycle and then colliding with the car the trooper had stopped.
The trooper was rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries. “When the trooper was hit, he was thrown through the air about fifty feet. His head struck the windshield of the vehicle he has stopped,” investigators said. Sergeant Daven Byrd of the Arizona Department of Public Safety Vehicular Crimes Unit confirmed the trooper was wearing his helmet which saved his life. Impairment does not appear to be a factor in this collision. We have no plans to identify the DPS trooper at this time. No one else was injured.
“Our prayers for a speedy recovery go out to the Trooper and his family. What occurred today is an example of the dangerous job performed by our troopers every day across the state in service to the people of Arizona,” said Colonel Frank Milstead, Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety.