Metro Transit police are investigating a collision early Saturday between a Maple Grove police squad car and a light-rail train in downtown Minneapolis.

After leaving the juvenile detention center about 1 a.m., officer Jesse Mathwig turned right at 5th Street and 5th Avenue, where his car was struck by the train. Mathwig complained of minor hip pain but was otherwise unhurt, according to Maple Grove police said. The squad car sustained serious damage.

Mathwig was one of two law enforcement officers credited with saving a driver from a burning vehicle Thursday morning on Hwy. 169. With flames shooting out of the vehicle, which had crashed into a roadside barrier in Maple Grove during a snowstorm, Mathwig and a Hennepin County Sheriff's deputy broke a window and pulled the man out.

CURT BROWN