Posted: $util.date("h:mm a MMM d, yyyy",$story.contentLiveDate,$timeZone)
Reporter: WOWT, Brian Mastre contributed to this report

Semi Driver Chased
Crash Victims Speak Out

An Omaha couple tried to stop an out-of-control trucker Sunday night. At one point, they drove side-by-side and shouted at each other.

The Nebraska State Patrol eventually arrested the truck driver on Interstate 80.

Tina Schmidt and her boyfriend, Bob Davey, were returning home to Omaha Sunday night around 9:30 when they saw a semi weaving across two lanes of traffic near Ashland on I-80.

They thought the driver had fallen asleep until they pulled closer to the cab.

"She's hanging out the window from her waist -- saying there are aliens -- she's doing all this stuff with her hands," said Tina, who was a passenger in the Park Avenue sedan. "We figured she was either drunk or high or something."

The couple even played along with the alien theme repeated by the female truck driver.

"Pull that thing over and we'll hide you," said Bob. "For a second she started thinking about it and slowed down."

For more than 15-miles, it was a game of cat and mouse.

Bob Davey rode alongside the semi with the empty trailer. Sometimes he drove in front of her. At one point, Davey said she hit the passenger side door.

While Tina provided second-by-second accounts of what was going on to 911, the operator told them to back off and let law enforcement take care of the situation.

Bob didn't back down. "I just couldn't do it. If someone got hurt out of that -- she would have killed them. I guarantee she would have taken out 3 or 4 cars -- no problem."

Eventually, the Nebraska State Patrol slipped behind the truck. The driver eventually stopped at 42nd Street and I-80.

While Bob Davey realizes what he did isn't recommended -- the end result was achieved. There were no injuries.

When troopers searched the truck, they discovered the driver was in possession of a methamphetamine pipe.

A trooper attempted to stop the driver near the Highway 50 exit but the driver kept going. The trooper observed the semi being driven in a reckless manner. It was driven at varying speeds between 40 and 70 miles per hour on the interstate.

Davey said he had the truck down to 15mph at one point. He said another driver noticed what he was doing and helped keep people from passing in a third lane as a way to reduce the danger.

The driver, 44-year-old Pamela L. Spring of Urbandale, Iowa was arrested without incident. She was booked on charges of reckless driving, flight to avoid arrest, driving under the influence of drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia and leaving the scene of a crash.

According to the Nebraska State Patrol, the truck Pamela Spring was driving was from Brown Truck Leasing Corp of Des Moines, Iowa.

She appeared in the Douglas County Jail courtroom on Tuesday afternoon.

Spring will need to come up with $1,250 to get out of jail on bond.

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