Off-Duty WA Firefighter's Truck, Boat Stolen at Crash Scene

An off-duty Washington firefighter-EMT had his pickup truck and boat stolen while he was helping a man who had crashed a stolen car.

The incident happened Monday afternoon as East County Fire Capt. James Troutman and a friend were returning to his Battle Ground home from a fishing trip, KGW-TV reports. That's when they witnessed a traffic accident.

“There was a car in front of us”, Troutman told KGW. “And I just mentioned to Travis that this guy was driving really erratically when I saw him cross the center line and (cause a) head-on collision into another car.”

Both men stopped and began offering help. The driver who caused the crash had been operating a stolen vehicle, and he started acting suspiciously at the scene.

“(He) was shaky, twitchy, running around real nervous. … As soon as he heard a siren, he cursed, jumped in my truck," Troutman told KGW. "So (my friend) went to the passenger side, I went to the driver’s side to reach in to get the keys that he had found. And when that happened, he took off, pulling me along and hurting my knee. He hit (my friend) hard enough to break the phone in his pocket."

Clark County deputies pursued the driver in Troutman's metallic gray 2019 Ford F-150 XLT, which was still towing a boat. Authorities, however, were unable to catch up with the man.

Troutman said marine deputies were able to recover the boat, but not before it was stripped of gear worth thousands of dollars. The truck is still missing.

A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help Troutman, who is expected to miss a few months of work because of his injured knee. After only a day, the campaign has earned more than $2,500 of its $4,500 goal.

“You need to do the right thing, you want to do the right thing, but when something like this happens, it's really frustrating," Troutman told KGW.