CORNWALL, NY : Driver killed in crash with Cornwall fire truck on Route 125 on Tuesday, 11th September 2018

Area residents were voicing shock Monday morning in the wake of Sunday afternoon’s frightful collision between a pickup truck and Cornwall Fire Department utility vehicle on Route 125 that took the life of 44-year-old Deane Rubright of Shoreham.

In addition to the tragic loss of life, the accident has left Cornwall Volunteer Fire Department members shaken and temporarily without a utility vehicle, which was used to carry all the force’s equipment to the many fire and accident scenes it responds to each year.

The accident occurred near a curvy incline on Route 125 near Cider Mill Road in Cornwall at around 3:45 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 9, while Cornwall firefighters were responding to a mutual aid request from neighboring Middlebury, according to Cornwall Fire Chief Dennis Rheaume.

Vermont State Police Trooper Adria Pickin’s preliminary investigation indicates Rubright was travelling west on Route 125 “at a high rate of speed” when he encountered an eastbound CVFD utility truck driven by firefighter Thomas Frankovic, 45, of Cornwall. Pickin estimated the utility truck’s speed at around 50 miles per hour, with its lights and siren activated.

The utility truck was trailing Cornwall’s fire truck on its way to a report of smoke in Middlebury College’s Proctor Hall, according to Rheaume.

Pickin said evidence thus far shows that “after cresting a hill and seeing other vehicles stopped in the westbound lane of travel for the oncoming fire truck, Rubright applied his brakes and proceeded to cross the centerline into the eastbound lane of travel, colliding with Frankovic.”

Both vehicles were totaled as a result of the crash and Rubright died at the scene,

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