A veteran police officer and cancer survivor who was training for an upcoming Ironman competition died in a bicycle crash on Saturday in Lancaster County, according to multiple media reports.
According to LancasterOnline, state police said Brian Kozera, 44, of Blue Bell, Montgomery County, was riding his bicycle on Nolt Road in Caernarvon Township at 9:48 a.m. when he ran a stop sign at South Pool Forge Road and hit the passenger side of a pickup truck.
He was pronounced dead at 10:51 a.m. by a physician in Reading Hospital, where he was flown after the accident, Berks County Chief Deputy Coroner George Holmes told the Allentown Morning Call.
The coroner told the media that Kozera died of blunt force trauma and internal injuries and the crash was ruled to be accidental.
“Today we received tragic news that one of our own, 16-year veteran Cpl. Brian Kozera, has passed away from injuries during an off-duty accident,” Norristown FOP Lodge #31 posted on its Facebook page. “Praying for his family and friends during this difficult time.”
A 16-year veteran of the Norristown Police Department, Kozera served as a member of the bicycle unit and as a school resource officer. He was training for the October’s Ironman World Championship in Hawaii when the crash occurred, LancasterOnline reported.
On a recent blog post on a fundraising site, Kozera said he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014, while training for a triathlon.
While recovering from a bone marrow transplant, he set a goal of completing an Ironman competition. He had since competed in the Philadelphia marathon, a half-Ironman in New Orleans and a 140.6-mile Ironman in Austria. He went on to complete five more full Ironman competitions, according to the Morning Call, including one in 2021 that turned out to be his personal best.
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