Striking boy in stroller wasn’t trooper’s fault

EUGENE, Ore. – An Oregon State Police trooper whose cruiser hit a stroller and injured a year-old boy was not at fault, the Lane County district attorney’s office concluded Friday.

The trooper, Clay Core, a recruit on the force a little more than a year, was responding to a report of a disorderly person on a bus when he hit the stroller containing Michael Meyers on Oregon 99 at Junction City.

Witnesses said Core had his overhead and other lights flashing at least 800 feet ahead of the point of impact, said Alex Gardner, chief deputy district attorney for Lane County.

The trooper tried mightily to avoid hitting the stroller and the boy’s mother, and he nearly succeeded, Gardner said.

He said the boy’s mother, 17-year-old Ashley Meyers of Springfield, inexplicably pushed the stroller into the roadway from a median strip. She has told reporters she did not see flashing lights.

“It’s very hard to understand how she didn’t see the cruiser, but sometimes people look and they don’t see,” Gardner said.

“The traffic was quite thin at the time, but what there was had yielded to the trooper,” he said.

The boy was released from Doernbecher Children’s Hospital this week, the police said.

His mother said he had a bruised lung, a possible concussion and scrapes and bruises. At the scene, Core performed CPR on the youth, who was not breathing, Gardner said.

Gardner said a reconstruction of the accident showed the cruiser hit the stroller at 54 mph after having braked and swerved to the right. Meyers estimated the stroller was knocked 40 feet.