High speed chase ends badly in Navarre

“It rolled three or four times…Boom, boom, boom.”
Those were the words of a Navarre resident, who refused to be identified other than by his first name, which he said was Mitchell, who partially witnessed a head on collision that occurred on East Bay Boulevard Monday morning around 11 a.m.
Mitchell described what he heard, which later turned out to be a vehicle rolling over several times after it was hit head on by a stolen pickup truck that morning whose driver was involved in a high speed chase with law enforcement officers.
The accident happened near Avenida Del Sol and Mitchell was one of the first people on scene.
“I heard it and I double backed to see what had happened,” Mitchell, who was on the way to a local convenience store to get a pack of cigarettes, said.
According to FHP, the suspect in the crash was being pursued after stealing two vehicles that day, both of which he wrecked.
FHP pulled over a Ford F-150 pickup truck hauling a trailer early Monday morning after the tags on the trailer showed it had been stolen. The truck was pulled over on the I-10 westbound exit ramp at mile marker 31 in East Milton.
The suspect exited the vehicle during the stop and then jumped back in the pickup and took off, FHP reported.
During the chase, the driver attempted to pull into a driveway on Swamp Creek Lane in East Milton and collided with a tree near the driveway instead.
He then fled on foot into a wooded area and stole a vehicle at a nearby home.
According to FHP, the suspect blew that truck through a gate and struck a FHP patrol car and allegedly ran several officers off of the road during his escape.

The suspect fled south down Hwy. 87 South, eventually turning westbound onto State Road 399 (East Bay Blvd.) in Navarre. It was at that point that the suspect attempted to pass numerous cars on the two lane road in an attempt to get further away from law enforcement.
That’s when the driver of the pickup noticed a Mercury sedan coming towards him eastbound during his attempt to pass vehicles in the westbound lane. According to Mitchell, a witness who was on scene during the accident told him that the woman in the Mercury sedan tried to swerve to avoid the head on collision, but was clipped by the pickup truck.
When he got on scene, Mitchell immediately checked on the victim in the Mercury sedan, which bared Michigan plates.
“She only had a few scratches on her, she’s very lucky,” Mitchell said. “She’s lucky to be alive.”
After assessing the woman in the vehicle, Mitchell said he spoke to one man who witnessed the entire accident.
“(He said a) pickup truck was trying to pass three or four cars, and she was coming eastbound,” Mitchell said. “She didn’t have time to react.”
According to Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Rich Aloy, Santa Rosa deputies were called in by FHP to assist in the chase, but the suspect pulled away from the deputies during pursuit.
The collision of the two vehicles forced the victim’s car to flip several times, and forced the pickup truck into a ditch near Avenida Del Sol.
“They said the man was trapped inside of his truck, and they were trying to get him out,” Mitchell said as LifeGuard’s Lifeguard-1 helicopter arrived on scene.
The accident closed SR 399 for almost two hours as local firefighters, EMS and law enforcement officers worked to get the man in the pickup out of his truck and to a local hospital.
Lifeguard-1 was able to get the man out of the pickup and air lifted him from the scene at around 11:15 a.m.
The victim in the Mercury sedan was treated on scene for her injuries by LifeGuard ambulance EMS workers.

The suspect remains in serious condition at a local hospital. His name has yet to be released.