COLUMBUS – A 77-year-old man was killed when his van crashed into a Franklin County Sheriff’s deputy’s cruiser on the West Side Monday morning.
Deputy Brian Fritz was driving his Ford Explorer cruiser, with lights and siren operating, westbound on Sullivant Avenue just east of Wilson Road at about 9:07 a.m., when Nyal Brown, 77, pulled out of a private driveway at 3505 Sullivant Avenue into Fritz’s path, said Sgt. Brooke Wilson of the Columbus Police Accident Investigation Unit.
The cruiser struck the driver’s side of Brown’s Chevy Astro and Brown was ejected, Wilson said.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Wilson says Fritz, 39, is a 14-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office Patrol Bureau.
According to a report on WBNS 10-TV, a sheriff’s cruiser was nearly hit by a suspected drunk driver who jumped out of his car and ran away, leading to a foot chase. Fritz was responding to the chase when the crash happened.
The driver was taken into custody.