Back-to-back crashes involving a State Patrol squad car and a wrong-way driver on a central Minnesota highway left five people injured, one of them a 17-year-old with critical injuries, officials said Friday.
The wrecks occurred about 9 p.m. Wednesday in Clear Lake Township on Hwy. 10, the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office said.
Because of the trooper’s involvement in the crash, the patrol asked that the Sheriff’s Office investigate the case.
According to the Sheriff’s Office:
Dale R. Braun, 70, of St. Cloud, was traveling east on the westbound side of Hwy. 10, crossed over at 70th Avenue to the other side of the highway and was hit broadside by an eastbound pickup truck.
The trooper responding on eastbound Hwy. 70 to 911 calls about the wrong-way driver “when he came upon the two vehicles and was unable to avoid a collision,” a Sheriff’s Office statement read.
“Investigators are examining the possibility that some of the occupants of the vehicles involved in the T-bone [crash] were outside of their vehicles when the second collision occurred,” the statement continued.
Pickup truck driver Blayke Mostad, 17, of Milaca, was in critical condition as of late Friday afternoon at HCMC, a hospital spokeswoman said.
