Officer Injured in Tuesday Morning Crash

An East Ridge Police officer was involved in a serious crash early Tuesday morning on Ringgold Road.

According to police, an erratic driver in a Ford Explorer was spotted driving south on McBrien Road towards the 5300 block of Ringgold Road. The officer activated emergency lights to affect a traffic stop.

The vehicle accelerated, ran the read light at the intersection and collided with another police vehicle responding to an unrelated call. The police vehicle rolled during the collision .

The officer, who has yet to be identified, was extricated from the vehicle by East Ridge firefighters and taken to an area hospital in stable condition.

The driver of the other vehicle was ejected.

The incident is under investigation by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, officials said.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.