POWELL (WNE) — A longtime professor at Northwest College died last week after being run over by a vehicle on a Coulter Avenue sidewalk.
Dennis Brophy, 75, had been walking in front of Rimrock Tire when a customer pulled out of the business’s parking lot and struck him, said Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt.
The driver of the vehicle, 21-year-old Shay Dillon of Powell, had been attempting to make a right-hand turn onto the state highway.
Dillon reported that he had been looking to the left (east) for oncoming traffic and never saw Brophy approaching from the right-hand side (west) of his car, Eckerdt said.
Brophy was trapped under Dillon’s 2007 Toyota Camry and dragged a short distance into the highway. Emergency responders were summoned to the scene shortly before 3 p.m. Sept. 23.
Brophy was ultimately taken to a hospital in Billings, where he died of his injuries, Eckerdt said.
He added that neither alcohol nor drug use is suspected in the crash.
Wednesday’s accident was the third traffic-related fatality in Park County this year. A one-vehicle rollover on U.S. Highway 14/16/20 east of Cody claimed the life of a 48-year-old Cody woman in July and a three-vehicle crash in Cody killed an 89-year-old man in August.
