According to the Times-News, the Rogersville Police Department responded to a report Thursday afternoon of a stolen Lincoln Continental headed westbound on Highway 11-W toward Rogersville in excess of 100 mph.
Police Chief Doug Nelson and other officers exited their patrol cars attempting to clear the westbound lane of vehicles stopped at the red light at the Park Boulevard intersection.
Nelson told reporter Jeff Bobo, “We were getting everybody out of the intersection at Park Boulevard thinking we had about 20 seconds, and he came up over the hill and just about got me — came within inches. He nearly blew me out of the road. I don’t know how I kept from getting hit. I looked up and saw him coming, and I didn’t have time to jump. It felt almost like somebody trying to pick me up.
Nelson said the driver the of the Lincoln, later identified as Anthony Allen Dixon, 30, couldn’t have stopped, and likely wouldn’t have tried stopping, had the intersection been blocked with vehicles.
Moments later Dixon reportedly attempted to pass a slow truck, lost control, and slid across the highway onto Hasson Street where the Lincoln crashed into a guardrail and two vehicles before coming to rest.
The two motorists involved in the wreck on Hasson Street were Dr. Ben Chambers, a local optometrist, and Terry Johnson, a Rogersville city employee who was in his personal vehicle on lunch break. Nelson said both men were shaken but not seriously injured.
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