MONTGOMERY — A police officer was hit by his own patrol car when another vehicle struck it on a dark road after the officer finished helping a resident clear snakes from his garage, police said.

At about 10 p.m. Tuesday, Patrol Officer Joseph Zizwarek, 44, a 14-year veteran of the Montgomery Police Department, was injured when his patrol car was struck by another vehicle traveling on Dutchtown-Harlingen Road, Lt. James Curry of the Montgomery Police said.

Zizwarek had just finished helping a resident clear snakes from a garage when the officer opened the door to his 2013 Chevy Caprice police car as an eastbound 2001 Ford F-150 driven by Matt Bundy, 32, of New Hope, Pa., struck the vehicle, Curry said.

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Zizwarek’s vehicle was parked at the top of a slight grade in the eastbound lane about a quarter-mile west of Route 206 on a section of the road with no street lights, Curry said.

Bundy told police he did not see the police car parked partially in the road before he struck it, Curry said.

Montgomery EMS and the Somerset Medical Center Mobile Intensive Care Unit responded, and

Zizwarek was taken to

Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton, formerly the

Helene Fuld Medical Center, with leg injuries including lacerations and bruises, and was treated and released, Curry said

.

The crash is being investigated by Montgomery Police and the Somerset County Collision Analysis Reconstruction Team. No summonses have been issued.