Mar 19, 2016 2 min read

An off-duty police officer in the Mon Valley was seriously injured in a fatal crash on Interstate 70 Thursday night.

Al Marcy, a part time patrolman with the Roscoe, Elco, Stockdale and Allenport regional police department, underwent surgery Friday on leg that was broken in the 9:20 p.m. crash that caused the death of an Ellsworth man just east of the Bentleyville interchange, said Tom Wilkinson, chairman of the regional police board.

“We were worried all night,” Wilkinson said Friday.

Jeffrey Dunlap, 50, was pronounced dead at the scene after his car, which was traveling west at a high rate of speed, struck the rear of a tractor-trailer and was tossed over a concrete barrier. State police said Dunlap’s car also struck Marcy’s eastbound sport-utility vehicle, causing it to roll onto its roof.

Marcy, a captain at the Stockdale Volunteer Fire Department, was lucky because had he been on the highway a second sooner, the car likely would have landed on his vehicle, Wilkinson said. He’s expected to have a long recovery from his injuries.

Marcy, who also is a retired Washington County sheriff, was flown to UPMC-Presbyterian hospital in Pittsburgh, where he also was being treated for broken ribs, Sheriff Sam Romano said. UPMC had no information Friday on his condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

He’s also a referee and had just left a football meeting at a Bentleyville restaurant when the crash occurred, Wilkinson said.

Staff writer Kathie Warco contributed to this report.