Highway Patrol officer pushes accident witness out of the way of oncoming Audi

A Florida Highway Patrol trooper has been caught on video pushing a witness to safety before an Audi, which had span out of control, hit him.

Trooper Mithil Patel had been responding to an earlier incident on Florida’s Interstate 95, and was talking to witness Rony Bottex at the side of the road. A feed from an in-car camera shows the two conversing.

With one lane of the highway closed, the other two appear to be running smoothly, but the camera captures a Chevrolet Express van heading towards the rear of an Audi A3 at high speed. Just off-camera, the van rear-ends the Audi and sends it spinning towards the pair at the side of the road.

With the car heading straight towards them, Patel and Bottex had little time to react, but the trooper managed to push Bottex to relative safety. This meant Patel took the full brunt of the collision, with the car clipping his legs and sending his shoulder into the windscreen A-pillar.

Luckily, other officers were on hand responding to the earlier incident and the two men were immediately taken to hospital. Early reports suggested Patel suffered ‘serious injuries’, but ABC News reports he is recovering well. Bottex injured his knee in the incident but is otherwise unharmed.

Speaking to the station, he praised Patel’s actions, saying the trooper saved his life and he “would be gone” had he not been pushed out of the way.

Both this crash and the earlier incident are under investigation.