Michigan trooper hit by SUV during traffic stop

CASS COUNTY, Ind. -- A Michigan State Trooper was injured during a traffic stop when an SUV hit the vehicle the trooper stopped on M60, just east of Niles.



The trooper was taken to Memorial Hospital in South Bend. Officers on the scene say Sergeant Paul Leonard is stable and his injuries are not life threatening.



Officers say luckily, Leonard saw the approaching danger just in time.



"The motor carrier officer saw it coming. He was running towards the front of the Expedition when he was struck by the Expedition that he had stopped," said First Lieutenant Mike Dawson of the Michigan State Police.



To get a better idea of what happened, they looked at the trooper's dash cam video.



Lt. Dawson says Leonard was in the process of giving the driver of the black Expedition a ticket when he saw the red Suburban coming straight at them.



He had nowhere to go so he tried to get around the front of the Expedition.



"If you look, that Expedition was thrown quite a ways so I'm assuming it hit him really hard. We're just fortunate that he's going to be okay," said Dawson.



The accident recreation team checked the Suburban's computer and found that the brakes were hit one second before impact. It was going 54 miles per hour when it slammed into the pontoon boat the Expedition was towing.