Hudson Valley officer hit her car, and she was pushed to leave scene. Her car was totaled.

Shock symptoms gripped Lia-Marie Henry the instant a sheriff’s deputy rear-ended her Subaru Outback.

Her hands shook, her breathing quickened, her mind went foggy. She then gingerly got out of the vehicle and started talking with the Dutchess County Sheriff's deputy, who calmly asked if she was alright.

But when another deputy arrived on scene, Henry felt the tenor of the interaction shift. That's when the law enforcement intimidation tactics began, she said.

The incident underscored conflict-of-interest concerns raised by an ongoing USA TODAY Network-Syracuse University investigation of police-involved crashes in New York. Henry shared her story in response to a call for reader feedback included with that investigation.

You can still share your own experience with a police-involved car crash by filling out this online form.

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Poughkeepsie woman: I faced 'very intense' questioning after crash

The responding Dutchess County Sheriff’s deputy repeatedly asked Henry why she stopped so quickly, refusing to accept her responses, she said. His "very intense" questioning seemed, aimed at getting the then 29-year-old Poughkeepsie woman to admit some form of wrongdoing, in Henry's view.

Still shaken physically and mentally from the crash, Henry simply told the truth: The car in front of her stopped suddenly at the top of a hill known for hindering driver visibility. She swerved slightly while slamming the brakes, and the deputy in the SUV following behind failed to do the same, resulting in the crash, records show.

The law enforcement pressure, however, was far from over on that morning last October on a rural stretch of road in LaGrange, near Poughkeepsie.

Finally satisfied with Henry's answer, the responding deputy shifted to pushing her to refuse a tow for her vehicle, she said. He then manually pulled her crumpled rear bumper out and told her it was safe to drive home.

Within minutes of hitting the road, Henry heard a horrible squealing sound as she tapped the brakes. She pulled into a gas station and called a tow truck. The tow driver took one look and declared the vehicle a total loss, she said.

An insurance adjuster had the same conclusion later, noting the crash impact was so violent it buckled the vehicle’s internal frame structure, Henry said.

The deputy’s motivation to avoid the tow also became clearer in hindsight, Henry recalled, as the crash report incorrectly showed her vehicle suffered less than $1,000 worth of damage.

Put differently, the records suggested the deputy was protecting a colleague by downplaying the severity of the crash.

Dutchess County Sheriff’s officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the crash.

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Henry described her post-crash questioning by the deputy as tunnel-like; she kept looking for a way to get out of a traumatic situation.

As the deputy inched closer during the roadside interrogation, Henry couldn’t help but think: What answer gets me back home to hug my family?

But when talk turned to potentially towing her vehicle, Henry changed course slightly and asked: What is the safest? That’s what I want to do.

The deputy’s response? The vehicle was fine and ready to drive. Henry pounced at the chance to take an easy out.

“I wanted to believe him,” she recalled, “because I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and thought, ‘I can leave now.’”

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But that relief proved fleeting as Henry’s vehicle faltered. She also later began feeling neck and shoulder pain at home, leading to an emergency room visit. Her injuries proved muscular and not structural, she said, though the tinge of neck pain still resurfaces today as a sporadic reminder of the crash.

At one point, Henry tried to get the Sheriff's Office to correct the crash report to reflect the true damage to her vehicle, which her mother owned and had replaced through insurance coverage.

One deputy refused to amend the report, Henry said, asserting she waived her rights to dispute the report when she drove the damaged vehicle away from the crash scene. A strongly worded follow-up email from Henry convinced the department to correct the report, records show.

In some ways, Henry’s experience during a prior accident deepened her disappointment with the more-recent crash outcome.

In that prior crash, a motorcycle rear-ended Henry and witnesses at the scene supported her story. The cop who handled that crash was professional and reassuring, she said, offering a stark contrast to what unfolded when deputies investigated one of their own this past autumn.

“It’s kind of unfortunate that this bad experience reflects on a whole bunch of good cops,” she added.

This story is part of Driving Force, a police accountability project meant to expose and document the prevalence of police vehicle accidents in New York.

This joint investigation between USA TODAY Network-New York and Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications was supported with funding from the Data-Driven Reporting Project. That project is funded by the Google News Initiative in partnership with Northwestern University-Medill.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Dutchess County deputy rear-ended car, driver pressured to leave scene