VIDEO: Unusual Vehicle Pursuit Ends with Officers Helping Motorist with Medical Emergency
Calls reporting a reckless driver on I-135 in North Newton, Kan., turned out to be a medical emergency. Police responded to the calls on Saturday afternoon, and say how things played out was very unusual.
Despite turning on their lights and sirens, the car that police were tailing didn't stop. In dash cam video, you can hear Deputy Chief Jim Bethards of the North Newton Police Department shout, "Stop your car!"
But the car didn't stop and kept crawling forward at seven miles per hour.
"I didn't really know what was going on, the way dispatch put the call out. They said she was varying in speeds from 30 to 100 miles per hour," said Deputy Nate Regier, with the Harvey County Sheriff's Department. Regier says the car was also weaving across both lanes of traffic. Then the driver slowed down, causing a back-up on cars.
That's when the deputy chief had to do some quick thinking. "Normally a chase isn't at 7 miles an hour, so that's why I drove around to get a better look at a driver, to see what was going on," Bethards said. "My window is down her window is down. I yell at her stop the car, and she looks at me kind of dazed and confused, her eyes closed. Looks like she kind of passed out. She sunk down in her seat and then came right back up. I yell at her again, she looks at me, same confused look and then passes out again. At that point, I realized she had no control of the vehicle at all," he said. Deputy Chief Bethards then decided to stop her car, by pulling in front of her. "I had to jump in and put [her car] in park. she was still rolling, she hadn't put it in park yet and was about to hit my car," he said. It turns out the driver was a diabetic experiencing a low blood sugar reaction. She was taken to a local hospital for treatment, KWCH TV reports.