A deadly high-speed chase in Iowa caught on camera shows the split-second moment a driver slammed into a parked cop cruiser at about 130 mph.
The cruiser happened to be empty, but that wasn't the most astonishing part of the accident early Friday: The driver's 5-year-old son was sitting in the back seat ... and survived.
"'Miraculous' is the word I would use to describe it," Indianola Detective Sgt. Brian Sher told the Des Moines Register.
The Volkswagen Passat's driver, Jeremiah Eldon Johnson, was a former Iraq and Afghan war veteran and was described by authorities as "suicidal and homicidal." The 33-year-old Des Moines man had been on the run after taking the boy from his mother.
Johnson' son, Johnnathen, was found crying on the floor of the car underneath a pile of clothes, the Register reported Saturday. Police couldn't immediately say how he cheated death.
He was taken to the hospital and was in stable condition, police said.
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An officer also walked away with his life when he stepped away from the cruiser a few seconds before Johnson barreled into the vehicle.
The chase began around 2:45 a.m. when a police officer in Clive, about 10 miles west of Des Moines, tried to run Johnson's plate because it was partially obscured by a plastic cover, reported NBC 13.
When the officer tried to make a traffic stop, Johnson sped away.
Warren County sheriff's deputies joined in the pursuit. As Johnson traveled west toward Indianola, a police officer there parked his car at an intersection to block the suspect.
The impact crushed the patrol car's passenger side and knocked out the engine.
Authorities said they had no reason to believe a child had been inside the vehicle.
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"If they would have found out a child was in there, they probably would have called (the chase) off," Sgt. Scott Bright, of the Iowa State Patrol, told the Register. "Those pursuits become very dangerous."
Johnnathen's mother, April Lozano, reportedly won full custody of the boy last July, but Johnson refused to give him up, Des Moines police said.
Their whereabouts were unknown until last month, when Johnson was pulled over in Georgia for running a red light.
With his son in the back seat, police said, Johnson decided to flee the scene.
While a warrant hadn't been put out for his arrest in connection with the custody dispute, he did face several charges from the incident in Georgia, including two counts of obstruction of justice, reckless driving and cruelty to a child.
Family members remembered Johnson as a loving man — but one who felt he had nowhere to turn, the Register reported.
"I think he was at the end of his rope," said his grandmother, Shirley Erickson.
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