What’s the most frustrated you’ve ever been on the road? Don’t lie, it happens to all of us—you get annoyed at one little thing, and suddenly everyone else on the highway becomes a driver from hell. But chances are, you probably haven’t gotten so mad that you drove an ambulance off the road—or, y’know, threatened cops with a machete.
It all started on a stretch of I-10 in Mobile County, Alabama. The Mobile County Police Department received a call detailing a pretty terrible scene: the driver of an 18-wheeler had run an ambulance off the road (you can watch that clip here)—and then proceeded to do so with just about every other car that tried to pass him. And it was all caught on someone’s dashcam.
The ambulance drivers were among the first to report the incident to the police. When they saw the erratic driver, they turned on their lights in an attempt to get the man behind the wheel to pull over. Instead, he just ran them off the road.
Other cars attempting to pass the truck suffered the same fate. Several other calls were placed to the police, according to local news station WKRG.
The driver hit two other cars before the police got there—but the man wasn’t backing down so easily. He tried to outrun police by crossing the state line into Mississippi. It’s unclear where or why the trucker stopped, but he eventually did—which is when the cops found out he was wielding a machete.
Both the east and westbound lanes of I-10 were shut down while police engaged with the angry driver for almost five hours. It took an astounding combination of smoke bombs, tear gas, and flash bangs just to get the guy to surrender.
The driver, identified as Michael Mack of Baton Rouge, is now facing a looooong list of felonies across multiple jurisdictions, and judges aren’t posting any bail. Among the charges are felony pursuit, aggravated assault against a police officer, criminal mischief, and reckless endangerment.
What’s not clear is why Mack was so damn mad—and how he managed to defend himself against the police for five straight hours.