![]() "I just really wanted to make sure I got a good hit, so that way I could disable him. "I didn't want to go directly head-on for safety," Barr said. That's when Barr turned his SUV to collide headlight-to-headlight with the truck, popping off one of the SUV's front tires and disabling the front axles of both vehicles. "He saw the pickup truck coming toward him, still travelling about 70 mph. The truck attempted to pass him as he’s there with lights and sirens on."īarr had just a couple of seconds to make up his mind about what to do. At one point, he’s coming around a blind curve … "The only thing he could figure to do was to try to slow the closing speed down between other drivers on the roadway," Milstead said. "He was able to get everybody behind him at a slower rate of speed. Before that, he would have to create a traffic break. He anticipated encountering the driver on a winding stretch of freeway carved into a mountainside. It was about 5:45 a.m. The truck was reported to be about 12 miles north of Sunset Point. 22, Barr was the only officer on duty in Yavapai County when the radio call came out for a truck traveling north in the southbound lanes on the Black Canyon Freeway. The crash with two fatalities "really stuck with me" and has been a motivating factor to keep everybody safe in future wrong-way encounters, Barr said. It involved a woman who had a medical episode behind the wheel, triggering a crash that killed her and another driver. The other accident was minor, and the remaining encounters involved drivers who either self-corrected or stopped when they saw him. Law enforcement has been stepping up efforts to counter an 18-month spate of wrong-way collisions on Valley freeways that has killed at least eight people, seven of whom died during a week-long string of crashes in May 2014.Īfter those incidents, DPS met with the Arizona Department of Transportation in an emergency session to discuss efforts to curb wrong-way drivers. ADOT began testing electronic wrong-way driver detection signs in August 2014, and since has posted large, wrong-way signs near surface streets at some freeway exits.īarr first used his duty vehicle to collide with a wrong-way driver in 2013. ![]() Amazing that he was able to time the collision in such a way that no one received more serious injuries. In my 31 years of law enforcement, it's probably one of the most heroic things that I've seen." ![]() "He literally turns in front of the vehicle and stops it by pushing it into a rock ledge," Milstead said during a press conference at the time. His boss, DPS Director Frank Milstead, didn't hesitate to declare Barr a hero. "I just try to take care of business and keep everybody safe." "Our jobs are dangerous," Barr said last month over the phone from his home in the Prescott area. 22, insisting he was just doing his job.īecause that's his way, modest and professional. The 36-year-old lawman remained humble about his actions on Aug. It was the sixth time Barr has confronted a wrong-way driver over a dozen years with the DPS, and the third time he collided with one to keep it from plowing into oncoming traffic. The incident marked the fourth wrong-way crash on a freeway in Maricopa County this year, according to an Arizona Republic database.īarr, who is recovering from a fractured disk and three herniated disks, met with reporters Wednesday at the DPS headquarters in Phoenix, urging Valley drivers to "pay attention" because wrong-way drivers are difficult to avoid. Watch Video: DPS trooper risks life to stop wrong-way driver with patrol carĪrizona Department of Public Safety Trooper Jeremy Barr says he doesn't like to be the center of attention, but he's had trouble avoiding it since he used his patrol SUV as a barricade to stop a wrong-way truck driver in August on Interstate 17.
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