Washington State Trooper Dave Hintz spotted an elderly woman Tuesday on the highway riding a Rascal scooter and gave her a 6 m.p.h. escort home so she could arrive safely.
State police had received calls June 9 from people worried about the woman, as she was driving on and off State Route 546 near the Canadian border, KomoNews reports. According to Hintz, the road is “a pretty major state route where semis and cars travel.”
The woman, who remains unnamed, left her home to get coffee in the town of Lyndon and became lost on her way back. The escort allowed her to drive at her scooter’s max speed of 6 m.p.h. — the journey took 70 minutes.
Through the dashboard camera video you can see Hintz help her use a map, and at one point push her out the side of the road, as she tells him, “Just don’t tip (the scooter).”
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Many witnesses thought they were seeing a low-speed pursuit, instead of a police officer helping a citizen in need. Andrea Ruth, who took a video of the incident, said, “What it looked like at the time was this older lady on a Rascal cruising down the road. The cop car with the lights flashing going behind her is what caught my attention.”
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“Our motto with the State Patrol is service with humility,” says Hintz. “I just treated her the way I would’ve wanted somebody to treat my mom.”