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A Lockland police officer was critically injured on Interstate 75 south of Cincinnati on April 20, 2009, when a fellow officer's cruiser struck him as he placed stop sticks during a high-speed robbery chase, police said.

Officer Brandon Gehring, then 23, was standing outside his patrol car near the Glendale Milford Road exit, preparing to deploy the spike strips, when a West Chester police cruiser driven by Officer Kevin Burger hit him, according to police accounts of the crash. Gehring suffered a fractured skull, several broken vertebrae, broken ribs on both sides of his chest and a fractured sternum, and was placed on a ventilator in critical condition at University Hospital.

The chase began after a man later identified as Thomas Joyce, 32, robbed a Walgreens pharmacy in West Chester at gunpoint just before 6 a.m., making off with bottles of OxyContin and morphine, police said. Joyce fled south on I-75 as officers from multiple departments joined the pursuit, then exited onto Fifth Street in downtown Cincinnati before he was caught and arrested at Clifton and Vine streets.

Joyce was booked on charges including aggravated robbery, failure to comply with police and operating a vehicle under the influence, according to police. Court records showed he had a previous robbery conviction in Butler County and earlier Hamilton County charges for receiving stolen property and carrying a firearm in a vehicle.

A West Chester Police Department review of the crash later concluded Burger had not acted improperly, attributing the collision to a breakdown in radio communication between the responding agencies during the chase.

Gehring, who also served as a Lockland volunteer firefighter, spent three weeks hospitalized and two more in rehabilitation at the Drake Center before returning home in late May 2009 to a welcome from students at Lockland Elementary School. He went on to make a full recovery after months of physical therapy and returned to duty with the department.