A suspected car thief trying to get away from Pierce County sheriff’s deputies slammed into a pickup truck badly hurting the 73-year-old driver.
The crash left the intersection of 96th and Steele streets at the Tacoma city limits littered with debris.
Lester Minzey and Henry Ledbetter say all this happened in a matter of seconds.
Sheriff’s investigators say the driver of the car, stolen out of Des Moines, was spotted by deputies leaving an apartment complex parking lot at a high rate of speed shortly after 11 Tuesday morning.
“Very quickly,” said Minzey. “Yeah really quick.”
When they tried to pull him over, the driver hit the gas and collided with the pickup truck seconds later.
The 73-year-old truck driver, who wasn't wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the vehicle.
“He had to have been 6, even 7 feet in the air,” said Minzey. “When he landed the truck actually hit him. His own pickup truck hit him.”
“The impact took him through the window,” Ledbetter added. “His truck ran over him and he landed on the ground.”
The truck's driver was in critical condition at the scene according to sheriff’s investigators.
Spokesman Detective Ed Troyer said the deputies who spotted the 24-year-old driver of the stolen car only tried to stop him after he was seen speeding down the street out of control.
“They didn’t know the car was stolen at that point and they didn’t initiate a pursuit because there wasn’t time for that. He crashed at the light at the very first intersection,” said Troyer.
The pickup truck driver was transported to Tacoma General Hospital. The car theft suspect suffered a broken leg and was also taken to a hospital.
Troyer said he will face criminal charges in both Pierce and King counties.