A 19-year-old from Bethel, Ohio, died Sunday evening after a pickup truck slammed into a trailer connected to a disabled SUV on a rural Brown County road, pinning him against a parked truck while he and two others worked to fix the vehicle. Shane Hull was pronounced dead at Mount Orab Mercy Hospital, while two other people involved in the roadside repair suffered serious injuries.
The crash happened around 6:02 p.m. on Liming Van Thompson Road near Yankeetown Road in Brown County, according to WKRC. Authorities said a 65-year-old man was driving a 1999 GMC Sonoma pickup when he struck a trailer attached to a disabled 2007 Nissan Pathfinder that was sitting in the roadway.
Three People Working on the Vehicle Were Struck
The impact pushed the Pathfinder forward into three people who were working to repair it at the time, authorities said. The vehicle struck a 70-year-old man from Hamersville, a 19-year-old man from Bethel, and Hull, who was also 19 and from Bethel.
Hull was pinned against a 2022 Ford F-150 that had been parked in the roadway and suffered fatal injuries, the station's report states. He was taken to Mount Orab Mercy Hospital, where he later died. The other teen and the 70-year-old man were taken to UC Medical Center with serious injuries. The driver of the Sonoma was not hurt in the crash.
Emergency Crews Responded From Across the County
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said multiple local agencies assisted at the scene, including the Brown County Sheriff's Office, Hamersville Fire & EMS, Bethel Tate Fire Department and Mount Orab EMS. Air Evac EMS personnel also assisted, per the same account.
Ohio law requires drivers to display warning devices in certain roadside circumstances. Under Ohio Revised Code Section 4513.28, a lighted fusee generally must be placed on the traffic side of a disabled vehicle unless red electric lanterns or reflectors are displayed.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol maintains a public crash dashboard offering five years of statewide crash data broken down by severity, roadway, time of day and other categories, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The agency's broader statistics pages also track year-over-year changes in crash fatalities across the state.
