ATLANTA, Ga. --
A Georgia Tech police officer was injured when his vehicle collided with a diesel fuel truck.
Around 3:00 p.m. Officer Joseph Figueroa was treated and released from Grady Hospital.
A spokesman for the university said that Officer Figueroa was responding to a distress call from an off-duty Atlanta Police officer around 8 a.m. Monday.
A spokesman for the Atlanta Police Department confirmed that an APD officer had called for help in restraining a suspect.
The university spokesman said that Figueroa's car collided with a Cherokee Petroleum Company truck on Pine Street and Centennial Olympic Parkway, in the middle of a residential neighborhood, just a few blocks off campus.
Dozens of firefighters had to cut the roof off of the police car to rescue the three-year veteran, a spokesman for the Atlanta Fire Department said. Figueroa was in stable condition at Grady Memorial Hospital, the fire department spokesman said.
The truck driver, who appeared to be uninjured, would not speak with CBS Atlanta.
"It was frightening," said Carol Neal, who was taking her daughter to the school bus when they came up on the accident. “The police car was totally crushed and wedged underneath the fuel truck. I thought the occupant of the law enforcement vehicle couldn't have survived the crash," Neal said.
The tanker was carrying 1,800 gallons of diesel fuel, the spokesman for the fire department said. Some of that fuel leaked, at first, worrying firefighters, but Deputy Chief Chris Wessels said that the leak was only minor.
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