By Guy Page
The dashboard camera of a Vermont State Police cruiser caught a harrowing moment in the life of Trooper Dylan LaMere.

During the early afternoon of Thursday, April 21, an unsecured chair flew out of the back of a pickup truck headed south on I-89 in South Burlington and smashed into a Vermont State Police cruiser being driven by LaMere.

As seen in a Facebook video, no one was injured, but the cruiser sustained significant damage. The pickup truck’s driver received a ticket for having an unsecured load.

“This is a good reminder that Vermont law requires loads in motor vehicles to be properly secured at all times for the safety of everyone on the road,” a VSP spokesperson said.

The April 22 Facebook post elicited hundreds of comments. For many, the video recalled their own scary driving experiences seeing objects fly or tumble towards them including a ladder, plywood, snowmobile, power sander, mattress, overstuffed chair, roofing shingles, plastic water tank, wheelbarrow, and a fishing shanty.

One commenter observed the chair might not have hit the cruiser if the truck driver hadn’t pulled into the right lane to allow the trooper to pass. “Talk about unlucky, if he had stayed in the left lane the chair would have wound up in the center island. But no, he saw the trooper and decided to move to the right. I think the trooper would have pulled him over for an unsecured load.”

Another commenter wanted to hear the sound. Was the trooper swearing as the chair hurtled towards his windshield? The commenter said if it was him driving, he sure would be. But we’ll never know.

One woman suggested her chair’s not in Kansas anymore. “I think this is my chair. I’m in Wichita, Kansas. It blew away on Thursday late afternoon during 60 mph winds.”

But most of the 331 (and counting) commenters expressed gratitude that LaMere was unhurt, with this person observing:

“Good grief, as if the job isn’t hard enough already.”