A Minnesota teenager was lucky to escape with his life after the autopilot in his SUV went rogue, leading to a chase with police and a near-fatal crash.
On Sept. 17, Sam Dutcher, 18, was driving near the border of North Dakota and Minnesota when the autopilot function in his Honda Pilot suddenly overrode the driver’s commands. "I thought, 'Hey, this thing is accelerating and my foot is not on the gas,'” Dutcher told WDAY-TV.
The car began speeding faster and faster, taking Dutcher through unprotected, busy intersections right near the end of rush hour. He first called his mother, Catherine, and then 911. The dispatcher transferred Sam to Deputy Zach Johnson, who began racing to find the out-of-control vehicle. During that time, Johnson exhausted all possibilities to manually override the vehicle including the emergency breaks. Because the computer software had completely overridden the vehicle, there was nothing Sam could do as his car approached 113 MPH.
Johnson knew they would have to take more extreme measures to stop the Honda. "We are going to put some stop sticks out in front of you so the tires get popped," the deputy told Sam during their call. As they devised their plan, Catherine was on the line listening helplessly. "We have officers from all over and medical all coming to him, OK?" Johnson told her.
As he kept narrowly passing through intersections, Sam began to think he could only keep getting lucky for so long. “My mind started to go, 'I am going to die tonight,'” Sam admitted.
Catherine was equally distraught. "Early, honestly, I was like, 'My kid is probably dead.' I was like, 'God, please don't kill my kid, please don't.”
As Sam approached a dead-end road, the officers knew they had just a few minutes, roughly four miles, to safely resolve the situation. Minnesota State Trooper Zach Gruver sped up so that he could pass Sam’s vehicle. "I was going 130 mph," Gruver said. "The (squad) car tops out at 140."
Another deputy driving next to Sam ordered the young man to crash his car into the police car in front of him. Sam did as he was told as the officer braced for impact and positioned his car to absorb the Honda’s force. "It hit me then that this really just happened. At that point, I just started to freak out," Sam said.
"There were a lot of factors in there where things could have gone very wrong very fast," Gruver said. But he disputes any claims that he’s a hero. "I don't think I did anything special. I think it came down to that I had the fastest car and I was able to get in front of him," he said.
Sam miraculously escaped without injury. He’s already back attending classes at M-State in Moorhead, where he’s studying auto mechanics.
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/6xzi48U
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