Police Chase Crash Leaves Suspect In Critical Condition
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A police chase that led to a violent crash involving an alleged stolen vehicle caused traffic problems for several hours along a stretch of the Parkway East Sunday night.
The crash happened on the inbound side of the road in Churchill. Westbound traffic was detoured off the Parkway East and then back on using the Churchill on-ramp.
According to authorities, the incident started earlier in the evening on Rodi Road in Penn Hills. That's where police say the car was spotted.
Several people, including the car's owner, called 911 to report the vehicle. Some witnesses said the driver was going down the road erratically.
Police then began pursuing the alleged stolen vehicle onto the inbound side of the Parkway East.
"And all of the sudden, I looked out of my peripheral vision, and I saw the, I guess you can call it the suspect's car, pull up beside me, swerve, strike me on the passenger side where I was, swerve back over to the left, strike the guardrail and then begin flipping end over end," said Brandon DiGiorgio, a witness.
"It flipped over probably about three or four times," DiGiorgio added. "I'm not really good with like heights and stuff like that, it flipped maybe 10 feet in the air at any given time, it was more like end over end. It was more of a barrel roll."
The state police accident reconstruction team began wrapping up their investigation at the scene just after 11 p.m.
The road was closed for about four and a half hours.
State police said the only person in car at time of crash was the driver. He was taken to a local hospital and was last listed in critical condition.
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