Patrol: Driver says she saw squad’s lights before hitting deputy parked on Minnesota interstate

The driver who slammed into the back of a parked Sheriff’s Office vehicle and critically injured a deputy behind the wheel said she saw the squad’s flashing lights before impact on a Minnesota interstate, according to the State Patrol.

The wreck involving the two SUVs occurred about 4:30 p.m. April 13 on westbound Interstate 90 in Dewald Township, the patrol said.

Nobles County deputy Arnold Logan Waldner, 30, of nearby Worthington, was hospitalized with critical injuries.

His wife, Amber Waldner, told the Minnesota Star Tribune on Monday, “There’s no change this week. We are hoping to take him off sedation so we can get a prognosis.”

The other driver, 63-year-old Theresa Ann Baer of Sioux Falls, was hospitalized with less serious injuries.

The State Patrol filed search-warrant affidavits that cleared the way for the agency to analyze both vehicles’ data systems as part of its investigation into the crash.

The filing disclosed that Waldner, who has been with the Sheriff’s Office for about two years, was parked in the right lane of the interstate with his “emergency lights fully illuminated,” the filing read.

Baer told troopers at the scene that “she saw the lights of the squad car and thought he was on a traffic stop,” the affidavit continued.

Waldner was assigned to conduct traffic control while the patrol used a drone to investigate a fatal crash on that stretch of the interstate two days earlier.

In that crash, a semitrailer truck being driven by 30-year-old Brody William Alderson of Lake Benton, Minn., struck a pickup truck from behind shortly before 11 p.m., according to the patrol.

The pickup’s driver, Thomas Charles Lostetter, 46, of St. Marys, W.Va., was pulling a camper at the time and died at the scene, the patrol said.

Alderson told the patrol that “he saw the lights from the pickup in the distance,” a court document disclosed. “When he saw the lights, he began to check his gauges in the semi and [checked] mirrors to see if anyone was behind him. Alderson stated he came up on the pickup a lot faster than he thought.”