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Unintended acceleration can scare any driver. But it’s especially terrifying for a rookie driver, like 18-year-old Sam Dutcher, whose Honda Pilot suddenly began accelerating uncontrollably through Clay County, Minnesota on the night of September 17. Dutcher’s brakes reportedly wouldn’t slow the SUV down, and he couldn’t turn the engine off, either. Thankfully, Dutcher was on a long enough stretch of road to handle the speed, while he dialed 911 and authorities tried everything for over 30 miles before finally stopping the teen safely.
County and Minnesota State Police rushed to Dutcher’s aid, per The Guardian, driving alongside the SUV as it crossed State Highway 9. Police remained on the phone with Dutcher through the emergency. After nearly 20 minutes of high-speed driving, his Pilot was barreling toward the T-shaped end of the road at its top speed of 113 mph. Time was running out.
At first, the police considered using stopsticks to flatten the tires and slow the SUV down. Putting aside the danger that could pose for Dutcher and anyone else on the road near him, no officer could get far in front of Dutcher’s path quickly enough, with enough time to lay the sticks down. “My mind started to go, ‘I’m going to die tonight,'” Dutcher told WDAY-TV. You can see one moment when the SUV speeds past Minnesota State Trooper Zach Gruver’s patrol car at about 1:15 in the timestamped dashcam footage below:
‘This road ends in a T in three to four miles, so at that point, we knew we had to get this car stopped,” Gruver told the local station.
Gruver was eventually able to pass Dutcher at 130 mph in his Dodge Charger cruiser to get in front of him, while Clay County Deputy Zach Johnson instructed Dutcher to crash into Gruver. “Yes, run into the back of his car,” Johnson told Dutcher in the dashcam footage. So that’s what Dutcher did. He struck Gruver’s patrol car, who then slammed on the Charger’s brakes to slow the SUV down—and, miraculously, it worked. The impact happens at around 3:52 in the above video.
Why Dutcher’s Pilot accelerated unintentionally is still unclear, and authorities have not yet released their findings, per The Guardian. Honda told the news outlet in a statement that it was grateful that law enforcement was able to get Dutcher home without injury; as for what could’ve possibly gone wrong with the vehicle, Honda said the company “cannot speculate about the issue the customer experienced without a detailed inspection, and we encourage the family to have the vehicle towed to an authorized Honda dealer for inspection if that has not already occurred.”
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