PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — A Washington State Patrol (WSP) trooper was hit Sunday morning while responding to a call in Pierce County, marking the fifth incident involving a state trooper this week.
The state trooper was trying to help clear a disabled vehicle that was blocking the road on westbound State Route 512 near Canyon Road when he was hit by a vehicle. He was taken to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries, WSP officials said.
The roadway was blocked for about two hours for the investigation but has since reopened.
This incident comes just two days after WSP Trooper Tara-Marysa Guting was struck by a driver and killed while handling a collision along State Route 509 on Friday evening.
Three other incidents involving Washington state troopers have occurred since Wednesday, including an 86-year-old man who slammed into the back of a state trooper’s SUV in Kittitas County, and a pickup driver suspected of texting while driving collided with a trooper’s patrol car in Lakewood.
WSP Trooper Rick Johnson posted on social media about yet another incident on Dec. 19 where a trooper was hit while at a collision on eastbound I-90 at milepost 50 during winter weather conditions.
The troopers sustained minor, non-life threatening injuries in each of those incidents.
Earlier this month, on Dec. 8, a WSP cadet was on his coaching trip at the scene of a car that had gone into a ditch when their patrol car was struck by a vehicle. That trooper was not injured.
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Washington State Patrol officials are urging drivers to use caution and slow down.
