A Sumter County Sheriff's Office patrol vehicle blew through a red light at a busy US-27 intersection Sunday, slamming into two other cars and leaving three people injured, including the deputy himself. The crash happened at the intersection of US-27, Buenos Aires Boulevard and Northeast 136th Avenue, a junction where two other drivers had no warning anything was coming their way.
According to the Tampa Free Press, the Florida Highway Patrol said the crash involved a 22-year-old male Sumter County deputy driving a marked Ford Explorer. State troopers told the outlet the deputy was traveling eastbound on Buenos Aires Boulevard in emergency mode when his patrol vehicle entered the intersection against a red traffic signal.
That is when things went sideways, literally. The deputy's vehicle collided with a northbound Chevrolet Equinox, then rotated across the roadway before striking a westbound Honda Civic that was stopped at the intersection on Northeast 136th Avenue, per the same account. The Equinox driver, for her part, had entered the intersection on a green light.
Who Was Behind the Wheel
The Equinox was driven by a 65-year-old Belleview woman, while the Honda Civic was driven by a 19-year-old man from Grand Island, the report states. Neither driver appears to have had any opportunity to avoid the deputy's SUV once it entered their path against the signal.
All three drivers — the deputy included — sustained non-life-threatening injuries. Emergency personnel transported the deputy and the Equinox driver to local hospitals for treatment, while the Civic driver was treated at the scene, according to the Tampa Free Press's reporting.
A Pattern Playing Out Beyond Sumter County
Collisions involving emergency vehicles responding in urgent mode have made headlines elsewhere in recent months. FOX 5 Atlanta reported that an East Point police vehicle collided with a passenger car at a busy intersection while responding to an emergency with lights and sirens activated, sending three people to the hospital. In Florida, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported that a driver struck a parked North Port patrol car on Interstate 75 during an emergency response, though the officer in that incident escaped injury.
A more severe outcome played out in Commerce, California, where a civilian driver died after an LA County sheriff's deputy responding Code 3 to a call in Cudahy crashed into their car, Hoodline previously reported in its piece on the fatal Cudahy call crash. The Sumter County crash did not result in any fatalities, but it underscores how quickly intersections can turn dangerous when patrol vehicles move against the signal.
Getting the Official Record
No independent Florida Highway Patrol crash report has been made public beyond the details relayed to the Tampa Free Press. For residents seeking the official account, the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles department is, by law, the state's official custodian of crash reports, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. Official crash reports can be requested through the state's crash report purchasing portal.
