After surviving crash with drunk driver, Chisago County sergeant still protecting the road
MINNEAPOLIS — Extra eyes will be on Minnesota roads this holiday travel season.
A drunk driver hit a deputy's squad car three years ago, landing him in the hospital with a brain injury.
"Too many people don't realize their vehicles become deadly weapons when they're impaired," said Shannon Grabow with the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety.
Last year, 444 drivers died on Minnesota's roads. In at least 25% of the deaths, the driver had been using substances.
With cannabis now legal in Minnesota, troopers say they have to assume more people are driving impaired.
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"It's every bit as dangerous and it's every bit as illegal. So too early to tell what the data is showing, but common sense says that more people will likely be using, and so now is the time to plan ahead," said Col. Matt Langer, Minnesota State Patrol chief.
Thousands more are injured on the roads by impaired drivers.
"Alcohol-related crashes contribute to an average of 341 life-changing injuries each year," Grabow said. "Drug driving DUI incidents have nearly doubled in the last five years compared to the previous five years."
Sgt. Kyle Puelston of the Chisago County Sheriff's Office says his life was changed after he nearly lost it three years ago.
"I was trying to find impaired drivers, and at 10:28 p.m., one found me," Puelston said.
A drunk truck driver rear-ended Puelston's squad car. Despite having a traumatic brain injury, Puelston remembered the condition of the driver.
"She was so impaired that she didn't even know that she had been in a crash," Puelston said. "As I began telling her that she had hit a squad car, she thought that I was lying to her. She didn't think that happened at all."
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Puelston says he was able to return to work, but some side effects of the TBI remain. That's one reason why he still patrols the roads.
"It's a fight to keep my story from having to be someone else's story. So whether it's through education or whether through, it's through enforcement, this fight is always a fight worth having," he said.
Since 2018, more than 11,000 DWIs have happened between the day before Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.