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State Trooper Dies In Crash

CATSKILL — A state trooper who served with the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan died Wednesday afternoon when his patrol car struck a telephone pole, police said.

Trooper David Lane, 30, was northbound on state Route 32 about 2:25 p.m. when he tried to pass another northbound vehicle, state police said. They said the two vehicles “made contact,” resulting in Lane’s vehicle going off the road and striking the pole.

State police Capt. Patrick Regan said Lane was wearing his seat belt when the accident occurred near the former Carson City theme park and that there apparently were no serious injuries in the other vehicle.

Lane died at the scene.

Regan said he did not know why Lane was passing the other vehicle, and additional details about the accident were not immediately available.

Route 32 was shut down in both directions after the crash as police conducted their investigation.

Lane had worked for the state police for four years, beginning in Troop F, which includes the Catskill barracks, and then being assigned to Troop D in Oneida, in central New York, before returning to Catskill.

Lane was a Greene County resident at the time of his death, Regan said.

The Associated Press, quoting the Watertown Daily Times, said Lane was the son of Cheryl and Stephen Lane of Dexter, in northern New York, and that he served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Army’s C Company, 307th Engineer Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division.

Lane’s death marks the second time in less than three years that a trooper from Greene County has died while on duty.

In April 2007, Trooper David Brinkerhoff, 29, a Coxsackie resident, was killed in a shootout with a suspect who had holed up in a farmhouse in the Delaware County community of Margaretville. The suspect, Travis Trim, was being pursued after shooting, but not wounding, a state trooper the previous day.

An investigation of Brinkerhoff’s death concluded he was killed by friendly fire as members of the state police Mobile Response Team battled Trim. Trim was found dead after the house in which he was hiding was consumed by fire.

In May 2000, two state troopers stationed at the town of Ulster barracks died in an accident on state Route 28 in West Hurley. Veteran Trooper Mike Kelly, 49, and rookie Kenneth Poormon, 22, were killed when their patrol car was struck broadside by a tractor-trailer as Kelly made a U-turn in an attempt to pursue a speeder who was going in the other direction.

Investigators said they concluded Kelly was unable to see the tractor-trailer coming up behind him because of the sun’s glare.

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