High Speed Chase

On Friday, on our way to Nashville for Becca's graduation, my family headed out of Chattanooga and found ourselves witnesses to a high speed police chase.

It was totally surreal and a lot like something out of a movie.  We were driving along to get to Becca's dinner when we noticed a police car swerve out into traffic and get directly behind a beat-up white F-250.  The lights turned on, but turned off soon thereafter, though the police car was obviously tailing the truck.  We were directly behind them, and eventually passed them in the left hand lane.  We talked about what could have happened.  It was right around the time we dipped into Georgia, so we speculated that perhaps the Tennessee police were waiting to pull him over when we crossed back into Tennessee.  The driver of the car seemed to be drunk, since he was swerving all over the road.

We didn't think much of it for the next 25 miles or so, until we started passing parked police cars at the exits.  All of the policemen were craned around looking behind us, and my family started thinking that maybe they were back-up for the police car trailing the truck.

After about 25 minutes, we heard a police siren.  As we were driving up a hill, I looked out the window.  Down the hill, I could see the tops of police cars with their lights on!  We were speeding already, and  I didn't think there was anyway that white truck could be that close, but as we went up another hill, I was able to make out that the white F-250 was in the front of about 10 police cars with their lights on!

A few more miles ticked by, and the truck and all the police cars started getting closer and closer to us.  At this point, we were concerned for our own safety!  We were at the back end of about 10 cars stretched across the whole interstate.  If the truck caught up to us no one would have anywhere to go.  My dad started flashing his lights to the people in front of us.

That was when the white pick up truck darted out into the grassy median!!  It was so strange because our car was going pretty fast, but the truck started catching up with us in the median.  My dad called it though when he said there was no way the driver would be able to keep up that speed in the grass for long.  A few seconds passed and the truck started to fishtail.

At some point, the truck jutted out into oncoming traffic going eastbound, the opposite direction as we had been driving.  I watched as a semi truck struck the back-end of the F-250.  Another white pick-up truck was struck as well.  I even saw one of the two white pick-up trucks go up and over the hood of the semi truck.  One of the police cars did a 180 several yards behind us to stop traffic.

We found out later that the truck was stolen and the driver was arrested for driving under the influence.  Thankfully, no one was killed!  The driver of the semi and the stolen F-250 were both taken to the hospital.  It was a crazy drive, and my whole family was jittery after watching what had just happened just behind us!   Poor Blake called about 3 minutes after the semi and the trucks crashed, so he heard a very convoluted tale from me (with input from everyone else in the car!! Hahah) about what we had just seen!

Here's a local channel that covered the issue if you want to read more: http://www.myfoxchattanooga.com/story/18162591/violent-end-to-high-speed-chase

Here are the lessons in the story: (1) Don't drive under the influence, (2) Don't drive stolen cars, (3) Don't steal cars, AND (4) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't try to outrun the police!!

I think that's all pretty solid advice ;)