An 18-year-old behind the wheel of an SUV said the vehicle was accelerating uncontrollably, and he felt like he was going to be in a deadly crash. 

It was Sept. 17, and Sam Dutcher was in Harwood — a small town about 10 miles north of Fargo — and was heading east into Minnesota. He called 911 to report his Honda Pilot was speeding up by itself and he couldn’t stop it. 

“[My] mind started to go, ‘I’m going to die tonight,'” Dutcher said. 

Clay County Sheriff’s Office deputies, along with the Minnesota State Patrol, responded, trying to deploy spike strips, but were unsuccessful. 

At one point, state patrol trooper Zach Gruver sped to Hitterdal to control traffic as Dutcher sped through the town, reaching 113 mph. 

“There’s a lot of there’s a lot of factors in there where things could have gone very wrong very fast,” Gruver said. 

As responders worked through a plan, they realized Dutcher was traveling on a dead-end road — the decision was made to drive past him, placing a squad in front of him to crash into in an attempt to stop the SUV. 

Gruver was that driver, going about 130 miles per hour to get in front. A Clay County deputy on the phone with Dutcher advised him to crash into the trooper. This successfully ended the harrowing ride— more than 30 miles in distance, lasting about 20 minutes — with everyone making it out safe and unhurt. 

“Honestly, I was like, ‘my kid’s probably dead.’ But I was like, ‘God, please don’t kill my kid. Please don’t,'” Catherine Dutcher, Sam’s mother who received a call from him as it was happening, said. 

The Dutchers met with responding deputies to thank them days after the ordeal, Catherine embracing Gruver with a hug. 

Clay County Sheriff Mark Empting is proud of how everyone handled the situation. 

“We don’t train for something like this, but instincts took over, and everybody did a fantastic job,” Empting said. 

In a statement, Honda sent the following:

“Thank you for reaching out to Honda. First and foremost, we are grateful that the customer is safe and we appreciate the role of law enforcement in helping the customer stop the vehicle. We cannot speculate about the issue the customer experienced without a detailed inspection, and we encourage the family to have the vehicle towed to an authorized Honda dealer for inspection if that has not already occurred.  We also want to talk with the family and want them to know that they can always reach out to Honda Customer Relations at 800-999-1009.“