‘I love my job’: ISP trooper returns to duty 1 year after being seriously injured by drunk driver on I-65

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indianapolis-area highways kept State Trooper Azariah Keith busy during his first year on the job, until the crash that nearly stole his dream.

“You didn’t get a whole lot of time to look for people to take to jail,” said Trooper Azariah Keith, recalling working at the Indianapolis ISP post. “But you had a whole lot of time to take crashes.”

Keith had just finished helping someone change a tire on the side of I-65 near downtown late one Saturday night when a drunk driver lost control – slamming into the median, a squad car and Trooper Keith standing outside of it.

“Immediately what I thought of is my little girls and my wife,” Keith said. “Dear God, let me stay here so I can take care of them.”

For the first time, he sat down for an interview about the crash on Wednesday, his second day back on duty since it happened a year ago.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Oh my goodness, how did you get through that? How did you work through the trauma of that?’ In all honesty, I didn’t feel a whole lot of trauma,” Keith said. “I was a little emotional after it happened, but I’d say it was a miracle I wasn’t traumatized.”

Keith vividly remembers the searing pain of bones breaking, the tourniquet placed on his leg, the 17-day hospital stay and the months spent relearning how to walk. Despite it all, Keith said he was anxious to return to work the very next day.

“I would rather be out there sacrificing a little bit of something to protect people in the community,” he said. “Because someone has to do it.”

A Freedom, Indiana native, he’s since moved to the Bloomington post to be with family, keeping close to his heart the reason he became a trooper.

“I wanted to feel like I had meaning, what I was doing made a difference,” Keith added. “I love my job. Not more than anything, but it’s one of the special things I get to do.”

He said one thing that has changed is the increased desire he feels to find and stop impaired drivers who pose a threat to the community he loves.

“Before, I liked to just stop as many cars as possible,” he explained. “Now, I would still like to stop a lot of cars, but more than anything, I would like to get those people off the road who could potentially harm someone.”

Armaandeep Singh was named the suspect behind the wheel of the SUV that hit Azariah Keith, both men 22 years old at the time. According to court documents, Singh’s blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit that night.

“I don’t have any hard feelings against him,” Keith said. “I pray that God finds him and he realizes he needs a deep change in his life. But in the day and age we’re in, I don’t think there’s any excuse for driving while intoxicated.”

Several months after the crash, Singh pleaded guilty to one count of causing serious bodily injury while driving intoxicated. He was sentenced to 730 days of probation with no prison time.