Oct. 04--A veteran state trooper who was three months from retirement died Thursday when a tractor-trailer ran a stop sign and hit his patrol car broadside at a rural intersection in South Beaver, state police said.
State police identified the trooper as Blake T. Coble, a 24-year veteran who works out of Troop D, Beaver Station, where they said his wife, Brenda, is a dispatcher. They have two children, 6 and 8.
"His untimely death left two children without a father and a wife without her husband," State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said in a statement.
The accident happened about 10 a.m. at the intersection of Route 168 and Blackhawk Road. The accident shut the roadways in both directions.
Coble, 47, was taken to Heritage Valley Beaver hospital in Brighton Township where he died, according to Noonan. He was the 94th Pennsylvania trooper killed in the line of duty.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, Gregory Golkosky, 47, of Mt. Pleasant, was not injured. He was not charged Thursday and the investigation is continuing, police said.
The tractor-trailer was headed south on Route 168 when it drove through a stop sign and slammed into the driver's side of Coble's patrol car, state police said in a news conference at the Beaver barracks.
"It's tough. We lost a friend, a wife lost her husband, two children lost their father," said state police Lt. Eric Hermick. "You just get through it."
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