MILTON TOWNSHIP — Police Chief Charles Van Dyke told officials one of his officers is “lucky to be alive” after a high-speed chase resulted in a crash.

Van Dyke said at Wednesday’s regular trustees meeting that the July 13 accident, which resulted in Cruiser 507 being totaled, happened when Officer Robert Delagrange responded to an alarm drop at the Anchor Inn. Delagrange walked around the building and checked doors, when he found a man passed out in his car.

“Woke the man up, started talking to him and as he was talking to him, he could see that he urinated himself and believed he was impaired. He also very rapidly noticed the gun next to him,” Van Dyke said. “Things escalated very, very rapidly from there. While trying to get him to identify himself and order him out of the car, he was refusing all commands and started up the car, took off down Milton, then on to East River Road.”

Van Dyke said Delagrange then ran back to his car in pursuit and failed to clear the East River Road’s bend by Somerset, taking out the guardrail. If the guardrail was not there, Delagrange would have ended up in the lake,Van Dyke noted.

“The best I can say is, he (Delagrange) was one lucky individual. He had a guardian angel looking over his shoulder,” Van Dyke said.

Delagrange walked away from the accident with minor injuries. However, Van Dyke said because of the mechanism of injury, St. Elizabeth’s held him for 10 hours following the crash and he made him take two additional days off just to be safe.

Van Dyke said there was “absolutely, positively” nothing salvageable in the vehicle, with the exception of the radio potentially being fine. If the radio isn’t, it would be a $5,000 loss.

Van Dyke said his department believes they’ve identified the driver, finding out that he’s in jail on a probation violation. They cannot release his name because he has not officially been charged.

In other business, trustees:

* Approved Van Dyke’s request to authorize Hall Public Safety Co. to upfit the black SUV police vehicle approved for purchase at May’s meeting. The upfitting will cost $28,064.

* Heard from Van Dyke that all police personnel have completed the state auditor’s fraud training.

* Approved paying $4,658 for repairs to Ladder 500’s intermittent starting issue and aerial PTO not engaging, which was later diagnosed as a faulty pressure safety switch. Fire Chief Kenneth Oles said as of the evening before the meeting, the truck is fully functional.

* Approved paying $2,593 for the fire department’s yearly hose testing, done by Fire-Catt. Oles said they were originally quoted $2,995, but he was able to negotiate it down to the approved price.

* Approved paying $1,350 for the fire department’s yearly pump testing scheduled for July 24. The service will be performed by Countryside, which will perform it on all trucks.

* Heard from Road and Cemetery’s Dave Dunn Sr. that Willard Street’s catch basin project has been completed.

* Approved renewing township’s insurance with Medical Mutual, costing $17,654. It is a 3.16% increase from the previous year.

* Approved an engineer’s contract, which involves paying $10,000 to trigger phase four of the Pickering Street project. The project also involves First Street and streets surrounding Prop House.

* Approved appointing John Bennett as Fire Safety Inspector.

* Approved authorizing Fiscal Officer Lisa Balsinger to apply and sign for a $2,500 cemetery grant.

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