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NEW RINGGOLD, Pa. (AP) — Authorities were on the lookout Thursday for a man who jumped a police officer as she approached his vehicle and threw her down a 40-foot rocky embankment.
West Penn Township Officer Melissa Ruch had stopped on Wednesday evening to investigate a vehicle on the side of Route 309 in Schuylkill County when the man assaulted her.
West Penn police said the embankment she tumbled down is rocky and steep, and it drops about 40 feet. Ruch was able during the struggle to shoot the man with her stun gun, police say. Afterward, she called for backup, they said.
The man was gone by the time other officers arrived on the scene. Ruch was flown to a hospital with what police described as non-life-threatening injuries, but hospital officials declined to release details about her condition Thursday.
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