Document text
White City cyclist warned before fatal crash EAGLE POINT - A bicyclist crossing Highway 62 apparently ignored a police officer trying to pull him over just before a pickup struck and killed him Friday. Thomas Robert Jensen, 45, of White City, was taken to Providence Medford Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Jensen was unconscious, appeared to have difficulty breathing and had traumatic injuries, said Rod Edwards, Jackson County Fire District 3 battalion chief. Mercy Flights and District 3 emergency medical crews found Jensen lying face-down on the highway near Shasta Avenue around 7:40 p.m., he said. The pickup's driver, Ralph Frederick Dalessio, 54, of Eagle Point, and passenger Larry Anthony Moody, 43, of Springfield, were not injured. Eagle Point police officer Steve Frantz said he saw Jensen riding without lights in the highway's right southbound lane near milepost 9 at 7:33 p.m. Frantz pulled his patrol car onto the highway shoulder and tried to get Jensen to stop, but he rode past. Frantz turned on his car's emergency lights, pulled in front of the bicycle and tried to stop Jensen again, Oregon State Police reported. But Jensen rode across both southbound lanes and the center median then into the northbound lane, where he was hit by Dalessio's 1981 Chevrolet truck, state police said. State police still are investigating the accident with the help of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, Eagle Point Police Department and the Jackson County District Attorney's Office. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.