On-duty trooper badly injured in central Minnesota collision

A state trooper was seriously injured Tuesday morning in a two-vehicle collision at a rural intersection in central Minnesota, authorities said.

The collision involving the squad vehicle and a pickup truck occurred about 7:10 a.m. at Hwy. 371 and Crow Wing County Road 2 in Fort Ripley Township, the patrol said.

Trooper Gregg Gerhartz, 54, of Baxter Township, was removed from his squad and taken by air ambulance to North Memorial Health Hospital, where he was being treated for serious but noncritical injuries, according to the patrol.

The pickup driver, 38-year-old Jeffrey Fink, of nearby Little Falls, was injured but did not require treatment at a hospital.

Gerhartz was not responding to an emergency call and did not have his emergency lights or siren activated at the time of the crash, the patrol said.

The trooper was heading west on County Road 2 and was hit on the driver's side by the pickup traveling north on Hwy. 371. The pickup had the right of way at that intersection.

The patrol said impairment from alcohol or drugs has been ruled out as a factor. It did not address whether either driver was distracted by any electronic device.

This is at least the third serious on-duty crash involving Gerhartz since 2007, according to court records and the patrol.

In November 2011, Gerhartz allegedly was typing on a laptop, drove through a rural stop sign near Sauk Centre and collided with another vehicle. He hit a car driven by 80-year-old Ernest Uhlenkamp, who was with his wife, Bernice Uhlenkamp. She suffered a broken wrist and ribs. Ernest Uhlenkamp had badly bruised knees.

Gerhartz pleaded guilty to failure to drive with due care due to speeding and had dismissed a misdemeanor count of running the stop sign. The misdemeanor charge he admitted to was later dismissed under a stay of adjudication.

In June 2007, Gerhartz was the victim of a distracted driver on Interstate 94 near Sauk Centre, where he made a traffic stop and was hit by a semitrailer truck. Gerhartz suffered serious injuries in that crash, the patrol said.