Iowa Officer Loses Fingers Deploying Spike Strip to End Pursuit

An Indianola, IA, police officer lost some of his fingers while deploying spikes to end a vehicle pursuit earlier this month.

At around 8:00 a.m. on April 1, Sgt. Scott Dwyer was attempting to stop a female suspect in a high-speed chase barreling towards Indianola at 90 miles an hour.

The deployment did not go as intended. Windy conditions caused the spikes to blow around and get caught underneath the suspect’s vehicle.

Dwyer told WHO13 , “When they got caught under the vehicle it got caught under and what I believed happened is that cord came up and severed my fingers.”

Dwyer was rushed to a local hospital as other first responders searched for the missing pieces of his hand. “They brought my fingers into the ambulance but unfortunately they weren’t able to put those back on,” Dwyer said.