A North Carolina highway patrol trooper who was investigating a four-wheeler wreck Saturday became pinned between one of the four-wheelers and his car, breaking his leg in two places. Trooper Kyle Barber was working the wreck along White Plains Road Saturday afternoon along with trooper Chris Anderson.

The two ATV’s had collided, but neither rider had suffered more than scratched and bruises. One of the four-wheelers had ended up still in the road. According to Trooper Anderson, Trooper Barber was looking at a rifle attached to one of the four-wheelers, and asked one of the men involved in the crash to move the other ATV out of the road.

Charlie Alexander climbed aboard the four-wheeler and started it up,not remembering it was still in gear. The four-wheeler took off, throwing Alexander off, hitting Anderson’s patrol car, and pinning Barber to his patrol car. Anderson, who was questioning Charles Holloway in his cruiser, jumped out of the car and shut off the ATV, rolling it back off Barber and calling for a rescue helicopter.

Holloway was already under arrest for impaired driving in relation to the earlier accident. He also faces other charges, and was booked into the Wilkes County Jail on a 2-thousand dollar bond. Alexander will likely face reckless driving charges in relation to the accident that injured Trooper Barber.

Chase Near Mt. Airy Ends with Driver Drowning

A much different outcome for an incident involving troopers near Mount Airy. In spite of a heroic effort by two men who saw a car fleeing from troopers plunge into a pond, the driver drowned before he could be pulled from the car. The Highway Patrol says 45-year old Bobby Junior Ross of Lowgap sped off from a trooper on I-74 that had tried to pull him over for drunken driving just before 10 Saturday night.

After a several mile chase that included Ross blasting through an old car wash with his Taurus and that at times reached 75 miles an hour, Ross lost control and sped into a field. Troopers say he drove another quarter mile, into the Stonecroft subdivision, and right into the water. The car came to rest almost int he middle of the pond.

Two men who heard the commotion saw the car, and grabbed a tire iron to break out hte back window. But the car sank quickly, and they could not find Ross beneath the murky water. The rescuers say the driver told them he wasn’t belted in, but he couldn’t swim to the surface. An autopsy will be performed to see if there’s anything more to Ross’s death than the drowning. A supervisor says the trooper was justfified in continuing the pursuit because of the danger Ross posed to other drivers.

Cross Words, Big Damage

A small fight started in a local bar ended with major damage to a Boomer man’s car. Wilkesboro Police say they were called to Dooleys last weekend, after Mike Horton and another man, identified by witnesses as Brandon Foster, got into a fight. According to the witnesses, after the disagreement, Foster went outside and repeatedly kicked the driver’s door of Horton’s car. After he tired of doing that, they say, he left. According to the police report, the damage will cost about 8-thousand dollars to repair.

Local Man Thinks He Was Scammed

“Please tell everybody, but don’t tell ‘em who it happened to!” That’s the request of a Wilkes man after he believes he was the victim of a scam recently. The elderly man received a phone call from an unidentified woman who asked him if he would like to receive free shoes meant for people with diabetes. The victim tells police he had a nice conversation with the lady and answered several other questions — including giving the woman his social security number. After he did, the caller simply hung up.

Then the victim realized it may have been nothing but a ploy to get his personal information. So he called the social security administration, which told him it would put a “flag” on his account so no one could open accounts with it. He also called the sheriff office to report the incident, and asked them to publicize it — but to leave his name off.