A Miller City woman was extricated from her SUV and rushed to a Lima trauma center Saturday morning after a flatbed pickup pulling a trailer failed to yield at a rural Putnam County intersection, sending her vehicle rolling into a utility pole and cutting power to homes across the area. Nancy Niese was driving south on Road 12 when the crash happened at the intersection with Road E in Liberty Township, according to the sheriff's office account carried by Your Hometown Stations.
The other driver, Hector Moreno of Gainesville, Florida, had been heading west on Road E when the two vehicles collided, per the same report. The impact sent Niese's SUV into a utility pole, causing it the roll over. Neither Moreno nor his two passengers were injured, and he was cited for failure to yield.
Multi-Agency Response Pulls Niese From Wreckage
911 dispatchers received the call for the crash at 10:01 a.m. Saturday, according to a Putnam County Sheriff's Office press release reported by LimaOhio.com. The Miller City Volunteer Fire Department responded to extricate Niese from the SUV, while Leipsic EMS handled transport, with additional scene assistance from Ottawa Heavy Rescue and Putnam County EMS. The intersection remained closed until 6:30 p.m. as crews worked the scene and made repairs.
Niese was taken to Mercy Health-St. Rita's Medical Center in Lima, roughly 25 miles north of the crash site, is the region's nearest Level II trauma center, according to Your Hometown Stations. The 425-bed facility is verified by the American College of Surgeons and serves a 10-county region across northwestern Ohio, per Mercy Health.
Downed Pole Forces Hours-Long Outage Across Rural Roads
The collision that sent Niese's SUV into the utility pole also triggered a broader electrical shutdown across the area. Repairing the damaged pole required a mandatory three-to-five-hour power outage affecting all properties north of the State Route 613 and Road 12 substation, including addresses along Road 12, Road E, and Road D, the same LimaOhio.com report notes. Crews eventually repaired the pole and restored power in the area.
Paulding Putnam Electric Cooperative, the member-owned utility that serves more than 12,900 members across Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, and Defiance counties in Ohio and Allen County in Indiana, warns that vehicle collisions with utility poles are a major cause of rural power outages. The cooperative advises motorists trapped near downed lines to remain inside their vehicles unless fire creates an immediate hazard, according to safety materials cited by the Van Wert Independent.
Citation Reflects Ohio's Most Common Crash Factor
Moreno's citation for failure to yield falls under Ohio Revised Code Section 4511.43, which classifies a first-time offense at an intersection as a minor misdemeanor carrying a maximum fine of $150 plus court costs and two penalty points on a driver's license. Failure-to-yield violations are far from rare on Ohio roads: the Ohio State Highway Patrol has recorded 208,967 such crashes statewide between January 2021 and mid-2026. State figures released in January showed the violation remained a top contributing factor in fatal crashes even as overall traffic deaths fell for a fourth straight year to 1,125 in 2025, according to Governor Mike DeWine's office.
Putnam County has had stretches of strong road safety performance, having once gone an entire calendar year, 2019, without a single traffic fatality — the only county in Ohio to do so, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol data reported at the time. Still, rural, un-signalized intersections like Road E and Road 12 remain a persistent risk. Just a day before Saturday's crash, Hoodline reported that a 74-year-old Continental woman was killed after rear-ending a dump truck on Route 15, also in northern Putnam County.
