A Maryland State Trooper was injured in a Maryland auto accident Friday, Feb. 3 by a driver who failed to pull over for a traffic stop.
Senior Trooper Jon Sawa was attempting to pull over a 2005 Chevy Cobalt shortly after midnight for erratic driving along Mountain Road in Harford County. The driver, 22-year-old John Jacob Nussle V, fled the scene.
Sawa gave chase, following Nussle for three full miles before Sawa crashed into a fence in front of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church along Old Joppa Road. A fence post struck the windshield on the driver’s side, hitting a radar mounted on the dash and barely missing Sawa’s head.
Sawa was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center for treatment of minor injuries. He has since been released. It is unknown what caused Sawa to veer off the road.
Meanwhile, Harford County Sheriff’s deputies who were monitoring the chase by radio spotted Nussle on Atkinson Road and continued the chase until he crashed on Singer Road in Abingdon about 12:20 a.m.
Nussle, a Joppa resident, was uninjured in the accident. He faces charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, assault and malicious destruction of property. Nussle rammed Sawa’s cruiser at least once during the chase.
Sawa, who comes from a long line of police officers, lost his father to a Maryland truck accident in the line of duty 25 years ago. Trooper John Edward Sawa died on March 10, 1987, when his cruiser was hit by a tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 near Havre de Grace.