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LAYTON — A Layton police officer is crediting a split-second decision for saving his life.
Officer Josh Lynch made a routine traffic stop early Saturday morning along Antelope Drive, one of hundreds he makes monthly. But the way he approached the car was out of the ordinary, he said.
"It is a split-second decision," Lynch said. "I can go one way or the other, and I just happened to go to the passenger’s side that time.”
Usually Lynch would approach on the driver's side.
Moments later a DUI driver sideswiped his patrol car and came within inches of the car he pulled over. He said it was the exact location where he would have been standing.
"I would have been seriously injured. It wasn’t until then that it occurred to me how lucky I was," he said.
The car that sideswiped his vehicle stopped after the impact. The driver was arrested for DUI.
There were minor scrapes to both the officer's patrol car and the driver's car.
Lynch said this experience could have been prevented and he hopes everyone can learn from it. "When you see emergency lights, you need to slow down and move to the side," he said.
