An Alaska State Trooper who received minor injuries in a Sterling Highway crash was identified Sunday. AST spokesperson Megan Peters says Trooper John Probst was driving an SUV which was struck Saturday afternoon.
A Saturday AST dispatch says the wreck happened near Mile 145 of the highway at 4:43 p.m. Saturday, when a green 1995 Dodge pickup with 46-year-old Kenai man Anthony Larocca at the wheel was headed north and tried to pass another vehicle.
“As Larocca passed the vehicle he lost control of the Dodge truck and crossed the center line,” troopers wrote. “An Alaska State Trooper assigned to the Anchor Point Post was traveling southbound in a 2013 Ford Explorer. The Trooper took evasive action but the Dodge truck spun out and struck the driver side of the Ford Explorer.”
Peters says the crash could have been much more severe, had the pickup not spun out before the vehicles collided.
“It would have been a head-on, except that it was the head of the (pickup) that impacted the rear of the trooper vehicle,” Peters said.
Probst was treated and released at South Peninsula Hospital. Neither Larocca nor the pickup’s passengers reported any injuries. Everyone involved was wearing seat belts.
The Explorer was towed from the scene, while the pickup truck was operational after the crash.
While the collision is under investigation by the Alaska Bureau of Highway Patrol, troopers say impairment was not a factor in the incident.
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