Anchorage police have arrested a man who they say drove a burning, stolen truck down the Glenn Highway before bailing out and getting in a stranger's vehicle in a strange chain of events that briefly closed the highway in both directions early Sunday.
The incident began when police received calls reporting a pickup truck on fire traveling northbound on the Glenn Highway. According to callers, a Dodge Ram was driving north near the Peters Creek exit when it hit water, hydroplaned and crashed into a guardrail.
The driver of the vehicle, who police later identified as Shane Wade, 38, "got out of the vehicle briefly but then got back in and 'smoked the tires' while accelerating to get the truck off the guardrail," according to a news release from the Anchorage Police Department Sunday.
Wade continued to drive with the damaged tires, emitting sparks that "eventually caught the underside of the vehicle on fire," police wrote.
Prior to the Palmer exit, police said Wade stopped the truck in the highway and got out just before it "became completely engulfed in flames."
He then ran across the center median, into the southbound lanes of the highway.
"A white and red Chevy Blazer stopped and picked up Wade after Wade stepped out into the Blazer's path," the statement said. "The Blazer continued driving towards Anchorage."
An officer listening on police radio pulled the Blazer over near an exit leading to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
Police said Wade was "combative" when officers tried to arrest him and was put in leg restraints.
Wade had facial injuries from the truck crash.
The driver of the Blazer said he didn't know Wade and cooperated with police. He was not charged with a crime.
The burning truck Wade had been driving turned out to have been stolen from Batteries Plus, a business on West International Airport Road in Anchorage, according to the statement. Police said surveillance footage showed Wade using a rock to break glass and take truck keys from the business.
Wade is charged with burglary, theft, vehicle theft, criminal mischief and leaving the scene of an accident. He was taken to the Anchorage Correctional Complex.