Trooper hurt when car slams into his SUV head-on near Lakeville

A driver speeding north on Interstate 35 in Lakeville lost control of his vehicle, veered across a grassy boulevard and through a freeway fence and crashed head-on into a State Patrol squad, the patrol said.

The driver was seriously injured and flown by helicopter to a Twin Cities hospital; the trooper was also hospitalized, with noncritical injuries.

The patrol said the trooper, Sgt. Mike Krukowski, 35, of Oakdale, was driving south on Kendrick Avenue near 205th Street about 4:30 p.m. when Wesley Paul Briggs, 29, of Lakeville, crashed into the patrol's sport-utility vehicle. Krukowski was wearing a seat belt; it was not clear whether Briggs was belted in. Kendrick Avenue runs parallel to I-35.

Briggs was taken to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale; his condition was not known. Krukowski was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.