2 St. Lucie County deputies and Fort Pierce Police officer injured in multi-vehicle crash, sheriff says
WEST PALM BEACH — Two St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputies and a Fort Pierce Police officer were injured Saturday night in a multi-vehicle crash, the county sheriff said.
According to CBS News affiliate WPEC in West Palm Beach, 45-year-old Perry Peables — the driver arrested after the crash — was booked on six counts of DUI with injury and property damage, along with DUI refusals, according to St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson.
Pearson told WPEC that Deputies Skylar Guertin and Jeffrey Anzalone, along with Fort Pierce Police Officer Corey Bernardini, were in the process of pulling Peables from a car during a traffic stop when the driver failed to stop and crashed into the back of the patrol vehicles with their lights on.
"You could see these patrol cars with their lights on two miles away," Pearson said. "I heard some slurring coming from [Peables] and I saw the open container of alcohol that he had in the vehicle with him."
Pearson said the crash shut down North US-1 at 25th Street and deputies advised the public to avoid the area at the time of the crash.
While the injuries were previously reported as serious, Pearson later said X-rays revealed no officers broke their bones. He also told WPEC that the third deputy did seek medical attention after "the adrenaline dump came down."
"The vehicle struck them because they were outside the vehicle," Pearson said. "They're bloodied. Their hands were cut, they had bruises all over themselves."
According to Pearson, Peables had a previous DUI conviction before the officer-involved crash.
"It could have been much more, much, much more worse than this," he said. "Hopefully he'll get a stiffer penalty this go around so this doesn't happen again."
