HILLSDALE, Mo. — Surveillance footage of an Aug. 26 crash in Hillsdale shows the driver being ejected as the vehicle goes airborne. Moments after the crash, footage captured by surveillance cameras shows police cars with the North County Police Cooperative arrive at the scene of the crash. A YouTube Short of the crash has since gone viral.
Police units from a different jurisdiction arrived seconds after the crash, suggesting the crash may have been another St. Louis-area police pursuit gone wrong.
The driver lands in the middle of the intersection as the vehicle continues its flight path, striking the traffic light pole. Police arrive on scene as the traffic light falls to the ground feet away from the roadway. The vehicle catches fire.
Officers approached the victim who had not moved since they landed. 5 On Your Side blurred the driver's body due to the graphic nature of the crash. Later, three officers picked up the driver and moved him. It looks like they were trying to move him without causing further injuries, barely lifting the driver off the ground and moving him away from the crash scene.
The crash happened at Kienlen and Idadale Avenues. The time stamp from a nearby business' surveillance system said it happened around 2 a.m. that Saturday. 5 On Your Side learned about the crash days later. Since then, multiple requests to the police for information have gone unanswered.
The newsroom reached out to Hillsdale Police Department for information about the crash, but a police spokesperson told us that North County Police Cooperative is the lead investigations agency, deferring all questions to them.
We reached out to North County Police Cooperative on Sept. 1 and on multiple occasions since. Maj. Ron Martin, the police department's assistant chief of police told the 5 On Your Side Newsroom there was no information available about the crash, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.
On Friday, Sept. 8, during a phone call with Maj. Martin, we asked if the driver survived. He said, "No comment."
We called the police department again a week later on Friday, Sept. 15., attempting to speak directly with the police chief or the assistant police chief. They were out on lunch, so we left our contact information and asked for a call back. We're still waiting on any information about the crash.
According to the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office, the driver is still alive.