The incident occurred at 3:45 a.m., according to District 4 South-East RCMP Sgt. Paul Ouellette. District 11 Caledonia RCMP officers were dealing with a collision on Route 15 and District 4 dispatched an officer to help out. He was travelling on Route 15 when he saw a car parked on the side of the road near the new Scoudouc overpass and a teenager was standing next to the vehicle flagging him down.

Ouellette says the Mountie pulled over and the youth told him he'd run out of gas. When the officer asked a couple of questions, he became suspicious and began investigating the situation.

"At one point while the police officer was inside the suspect's vehicle, the young guy bolted to the police car and took off," says the sergeant.

As the teen started to drive off, the officer tried to get inside the police car, but fell out. He suffered minor cuts and bruises and the teen took off down the highway at high speed.

Ouellette says the teen drove eight kilometres down the road, emergency lights still flashing from when the Mountie pulled over. As he reached Painsec Junction, he came upon the Mounties who had answered the original call about a collision on the other side of the divided highway. Possibly panicking at the sight of the police, the youth swerved, hit guardrails on both sides of the road and crashed.

The officers crossed the median and arrested him as he exited the destroyed police car.

The youth was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He was released from hospital on Sunday into the custody of police.

The investigation revealed that the car the youth had initially been driving was also stolen.

The 16-year-old appeared in Moncton youth court yesterday and was charged with two counts of theft of a motor vehicle, including theft of a police car. He was also charged with obstructing a police officer, assaulting a police officer, impaired driving, breach of probation, and five counts of breaching a court undertaking.

Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, he cannot be named due to his age.

The accused was remanded into custody and is scheduled to appear in court next on Nov. 7.

Ouellette says the officer involved in the incident wasn't badly hurt and will be back to work after a couple of days off.