Chiefland man, FDOT worker, hit by truck, critically injured at SR 121,CR 337 intersection detour
Florida Highway Patrol Troop B
Levy County, Florida - A 64 year-old man from Chiefland, Florida, an employee with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), was critically injured when he was struck by a vehicle while working at a job site at 6:40 am, Tuesday morning, January 30, 2024, at the intersection of State Road 121 and County Road 337.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a 2019 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, driven by a 25 year-old woman from Dunnellon, Florida, was traveling south on County Road 337, approaching the intersection of State Road 121.
At the intersection - due to diminished visibility from fog, and smoke from a prescribed burn near the area - all southbound traffic was being rerouted to travel north on State Road 121. The FDOT employee was standing within the intersection behind traffic cones that had been set out for the detour.
At State Road 121, the driver did not stop, and instead, proceeded through the intersection, where the front of the pickup truck struck a large traffic cone and then the man standing within the intersection.
The man, who was critically injured, was air lifted to UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida.
Several roads in the were closed, with detours, for several hours during the day, and reopened shortly before 1:30 pm, due to fog, along with smoke from a 3,300-acre prescribed burn in the southern area of the Goethe State Forest.