BLACKFORD COUNTY, Ind. --
A Montpelier police officer was in serious condition Friday after he was struck by an intoxicated driver as he was helping a stranded motorist, police said.
Montpelier Officer Kevin D. Smith, 47, was called to the area of County Road 400 N. and State Road 3 just after 3 a.m. to assist a Hartford City officer with a vehicle that had slid off the side of the road.
Smith was standing by a tow truck with its emergency lights flashing in the northbound lanes when the driver of an SUV drove off the road in an attempt to go around the truck on the right, police said.
The SUV struck the tow truck, then Smith and his squad car before coming to rest about 100 feet north of the crash, police said.
The driver of the SUV, Jeffery D. Mills, 50, of Hartford City, was arrested and preliminarily charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance and possession of paraphernalia.
Smith, a 21-year-veteran of the Montpelier Police Department, was taken to a hospital in Hartford City and then transferred to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne with non-life-threatening internal injuries.
Mills was being held Friday in the Blackford County Jail.
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