Police Officer Uses Patrol Car To Halt Senior Citizen Driving Wrong Way On Highway [video]

Maine State Trooper Douglas Cropper’s fast reflexes and clear thinking may have saved many lives on Interstate 295. Trooper Copper received an emergency call alerting him to a car driving the wrong way on the highway and he immediately left the routine traffic stop he was conducting and rushed to the scene, The Blaze reports.

Kenneth Gill Scarborough, 88, drove from his home to pay his water bill and wound up driving onto the highway going in the wrong direction.

“I knew I had to get to Marginal Way and back on Exit 7 and cross over before he got to the bridge. I knew we would be looking at more than an accident,” Maine State Trooper Douglas Cropper stated during an interview with the Portland Press Herald.

Officer Cropper also knew the driver would face several curvy sections of road before he could reach and exit and feared a massive accident would occur. When he reached the stretch of road ahead of Scarborough’s vehicle, he realized he did not have time to “deploy spike strips” and decided to go to “Plan B,” The Blaze reports.

Trooper Cropper used his own vehicle as a blockade to stop the car from continuing down the Maine highway the wrong way and potentially causing serious injury and possibly death to unsuspecting drivers. Scarborough’s car “slammed” in the front of Trooper Cropper’s patrol car going approximately 50 MPH – fortunately neither was harmed.

“I came in pretty hard, but I was on my brakes and almost at a dead stop,” Office Cropper noted.

Once safely out traffic, Scarborough told Officer Cropper than he hadn’t seen an exit. Cropper’s experienced driving skills are showcased on the dash cam of the patrol car as the trooper is forced to drive the wrong way on the highway himself to stop Scarborough’s car.