A California driver’s dashboard camera captured the moment a Los Angeles County deputy’s patrol car went airborne after another vehicle collided with the cruiser at a busy intersection on Wednesday.
The crash happened just before 12:30 p.m. at the intersection of Newhall Ranch Road and Bouquet Canyon Road in Santa Clarita.
Video shows a gold Lexus crashing into the side of the cruiser as the deputy drives through the intersection. The impact sends the patrol car spinning and flipping through the air before it strikes a silver SUV at a stoplight and comes to a rest right-side up.
"[It] just happened so fast," Allen Rapisura, whose dashcam captured the crash, told FOX11 Los Angeles. "It's like something you see in the movies."
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Audry Carias, another witness, described the moment of the crash to KTLA.
"The police car is coming towards me and another car just speeds up and hits it," Carias said. "[The patrol car] just flips and hits two cars in front of me. Thankfully, I didn’t get hit."
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Multiple bystanders rushed to aid the deputy after the crash, according to the reports. The deputy suffered minor injuries and was later released from a hospital, the sheriff's office said.
"I think it speaks volumes that Santa Clarita, the community loves the cops here," LASD Sgt. Sherry Clark told FOX11.
"It looked horrific and we're all just so surprised and very happy that [the deputy] walked away basically unscathed," she added.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Santa Clarita Station said the deputy was responding to a report of a burglary in progress, reported the Signal, a newspaper based in the Santa Clarita Valley.
The driver of the SUV struck by the patrol car was also treated at a hospital and released, while the elderly driver of the gold Lexus was uninjured in the crash, FOX11 reported.
No charges have been filed as the crash remains under investigation.
