Suspected DUI driver arrested after Kellogg crash that hurt Kansas trooper
A Wichita man is accused of either being drunk or high when his SUV crashed into the back of a state trooper’s patrol vehicle early Saturday morning, sending both of them to a hospital.
Emergency crews were called at around 12:15 a.m. to an injury accident on the eastbound Kellogg freeway near the Hillside exit, the Kansas Highway Patrol said in a crash report. Investigators determined a 2005 Jeep Liberty was eastbound when it struck an emergency vehicle parked on the outside shoulder with its emergency lights activated.
Trooper Matthew Wagner, 22, of Colwich, was in the 2019 Ford Explorer. He was taken to Wesley Medical Center with suspected minor injuries.
The driver of the Jeep, identified by the KHP as Albert Plante, 41, of Wichita, was also taken to Wesley Medical Center with suspected minor injuries.
Sedgwick County Jail booking reports show Plante was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, aggravated battery during a DUI crash that caused great bodily harm or disfigurement, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle and driving with a license that was canceled, suspended or revoked. He also had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear.
Plante remained jailed Sunday morning.
Photos shared on Twitter by regional highway patrol spokesman Trooper Chad Crittenden and the KHP Air Support Unit showed some of the damage to the vehicles. Much of the front end of the Jeep was crunched — including a grille guard. One of the Jeep’s front tires appeared to have become separated from the rest of the vehicle.
The Ford Explorer’s rear bumper was torn off, and the rear hatch was dented in where the words “state trooper” appeared.
“Distracted, drunk, drugged or drowsy is something that can change our lives,” Crittenden said in a tweet. “This is the 2nd Trooper hit in 3 day in Wichita.”
On Wednesday, a trooper was taken to a hospital with suspected serious injuries after being rear-ended by the driver of a Toyota Prius, who was switching lanes on I-35 near the 77th Street exit in Park City, the highway patrol said. That wreck happened when the Prius could not stop in time due to road conditions, troopers wrote in a report. A winter storm dropped snow and rain on roads the previous night.
Both injured troopers are now recovering at home, Crittenden said.
Troopers in the air support unit also advised drivers against rubbernecking, tweeting a video of Saturday morning’s wreck apparently taken by a passerby.
This was not the first time a law enforcement officer has been hurt in a crash on Kellogg where the driver was accused of being impaired.
In August, a Wichita Police Department officer responding to a report of a wrong-way driver at Kellogg and Maize collided head-on with a Ford F-350 driven by a suspected drunk driver.
The same weekend, an officer providing traffic control for a previous wreck at Hydraulic under the I-135 overpass was hurt when a suspected drunk driver slammed a car into the patrol vehicle and another occupied vehicle.
Police records showed both of those men had two prior DUI convictions.
In April 2018, an injured Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office deputy pulled an unconscious, drunken and bloody driver from a car that had wrecked into his patrol vehicle. The deputy, who needed surgery, had been conducting an unrelated traffic stop on Harry Street between Webb and Greenwich.
The day before, an off-duty WPD motorcycle officer and his son were hit by a suspected drunk driver in Sedgwick County. The father and son both died.