CAPE CORAL, Fla. - A Cape Coral Police Officer is in critical condition at Lee Memorial Hospital Thursday night after a serious car accident.

24-year-old Officer Stephen Chase was responding to a burglary call with lights and sirens on, on Northeast 7th Place when police say a Jeep Liberty in front of him tried to make a left turn onto northeast 27th Terrace... but the cruiser crashed into it.

"Alls I seen is just lights and cars coming and then just a big puff of smoke and dirt cloud," Eric West says.

He was just down the street when he heard the commotion and immediately went to help.

"I went up there and I broke out the passenger window and pried open the door, make sure the officer was alright."

West says Officer Chase was conscious, but he could tell he wasn't okay.

"He was alive. He was bleeding from his nose and his mouth," West says.
Officer Chase was also pinned. It took firefighters using the jaws of life to get him out. Emergency crews took the officer to the hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries.

West says it was just instinct to help. "I'd want someone to do the same thing for me," he says.

Florida Highway Patrol is still investigating the crash. They say its likely the driver of the Jeep will be cited because the officer had his lights and siren on at the time of the crash.