Video shows Colorado trooper using vehicle to stop wrong-way driver
By: -----
Fort Morgan, CO - A Colorado State Patrol Trooper walked away with minor injuries after using his patrol car to stop a woman driving the wrong way on Interstate 76 in northeast Colorado.
"Ultimately, he did exactly what he needed to do to stop that vehicle, and it ultimately ended in hopefully saving someone's life," said Trooper Hunter Mathews with the Colorado State Patrol (CSP).
Body camera footage shows the head-on crash between a trooper and a woman driving the wrong way down I-76 near Fort Morgan after 2 a.m. Sunday morning.
"While he was driving down the roadway in the number one lane, he noticed the vehicle coming at him and decided the best measure for him to stop that vehicle was to collide head on with it," Mathews said.
Mathews said CSP troopers will do what they need to when a car is going the wrong way, even if it means crashing into them.
"Yeah, you know these things happen so fast, and we really don't have much time to process exactly what we're going to do," Mathews said. "In that moment, the best thing for him to do and for everyone in the area that is going to be driving eastbound on that roadway was to stop that vehicle by hitting it head on."
After the crash, the trooper walked away with minor injuries and was still able to arrest the driver, 36-year-old Claudia Rodriguez. She had only minor injuries, according to CSP, but she faces charges for DUI and reckless driving.
According to an affidavit for her arrest, Rodriguez admitted to a trooper that she had been drinking earlier in the evening at a bar in Sterling. After the crash, troopers found an open bottle of wine on the passenger side floor board. According to the affidavit, Rodriguez stated that she had been drinking from the bottle while she was driving to Greeley.
While at the hospital, she agreed to a preliminary breath test and the results showed a level of .162. The legal limit to drive is .08.