Passenger: Drinking preceded crash that killed Pa. officer
LIGONIER (AP) – The passenger in a van involved in a head-on crash that killed a western Pennsylvania police officer says he and the driver were drinking before the collision.
Derek Gifford tells Thursday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he and 31-year-old Clair Fink III finished most of an 18 pack of beer before Tuesday’s crash in Ligonier.
State police say the Westmoreland Pools & Spas van was traveling the wrong way when it crashed into 40-year-old Ligonier Township Lt. Eric Eslary’s SUV.
His K-9 partner, Blek, is recovering from surgery.
The 21-year-old Gifford tells the newspaper he and Fink drank most of the beer, gave a can to a co-worker and had two or four left.
He says they’d been in the wrong lane for a minute or two before the crash.