PAHOKEE, Fla. -- Two Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies were killed Wednesday after being struck by a fellow officer's patrol car while authorities were pursuing a stolen vehicle in a rural area of the Everglades.

The deputies had put spikes on the road that punctured the stolen car's tires, but a canine patrol car speeding up the road in pursuit then struck them and careened into a canal, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.

"Usually what happens is the bad guys hit the stop sticks, the tires blow out, then they bail out of the car. That's why K-9 is there to track them down," Bradshaw said.

After the stolen car's tires blew out at about 1:45 a.m., the two deputies ran into the roadway to remove the stop sticks, but the approaching deputy did not see them.

"You're talking about a road that is absolutely pitch black," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw said the deputies were 13-year veteran Donta Manuel, 33, and Jonathan Wallace, 23, who had been with the sheriff's office for 1½ years.

The deputy who was driving the car that killed his colleagues was being treated at a hospital for a concussion and a broken arm, Bradshaw said. His name was not immediately released. A trainee in the vehicle was uninjured. The police dog was also uninjured.

Police had one person in custody but weren't saying whether he was one of the two suspects. Bradshaw also said authorities wanted to talk to Ernie Kirk Daley Jr., 19. Police were only calling him a "person of interest," without giving specifics.

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, Bradshaw said deputies chased the suspects but were unaware that the other two deputies had been struck.

"Nobody at the scene knew what had happened until a minute or two after that," Bradshaw said.

The stop sticks typically have lanyards attached so deputies can pull them aside without going into the road. The lanyards were not attached to these stop sticks, Bradshaw said.

The slain deputies had warned the K-9 unit that the spikes were still on the road, and made a split-second decision to run out and retrieve them, not realizing how close the pursuing patrol car was, Bradshaw said.

"The tactical plan was sound. The deployment of the stop sticks was correct except for there was no lanyard on them," Bradshaw added. "Everybody involved in this was doing their job. They were doing it the right way but this is a dangerous job."

At least 75 officers and several K-9 units spent hours combing the sugarcane fields between Pahokee and Belle Glade, where the suspects were initially believed to be hiding. That focused search ended as detectives pursued investigative leads.

Investigators tracked skid marks on a road left in the path of the wrecked K-9 as it went into the canal in Pahokee, a town on the shores of Lake Okeechobee about 45 miles west of West Palm Beach.

Deputies in patrol cars cruised along back roads throughout the area. One carried an assault rifle as he stood by his car looking toward a sugarcane field.

The chase began after a Belle Glade resident called police to report that a neighbor's car was being stolen. Deputies who responded saw the car and began following it.

A sergeant made the decision to pursue, since it was nighttime and there were no other vehicles on the road, Bradshaw said.

"We've had a lot of robberies out here where stolen cars have been used," he said, adding that the pursuit never reached speeds above 55 mph.

The deputies are the latest Florida law enforcement victims this year.

Broward Deputy Paul Rein, 76, was killed Nov. 7 while transporting a suspect to court. Michael Mazza, 40, is jailed after being charged in the slaying.

Broward Sgt. Chris Reyka, 51, was fatally shot as he was looking for stolen vehicles behind a drug store Aug. 10. His killer is still being sought.

In September, a Miami-Dade County police officer, Jose Somohano, was fatally shot by a suspect who ambushed him and three other officers with an assault weapon. The suspect was killed by officers hours later in Broward.

In January, a Jackson County sheriff's deputy and the sheriff's wife were killed in a shootout in the Panhandle. Earlier that month, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper was shot to death as he tried to make a traffic stop in central Florida.