Police hope video will help find truck that injured man at Central Kentucky rest area
Versailles police have asked for the public’s help identifying the driver of a tractor-trailer in a hit-and-run collision that seriously injured a man at a rest area along Interstate 64 last month.
Police released dash cam video on Facebook Friday that shows the white semitruck backing up and then driving away from the scene at about 2:15 p.m. June 22. The truck headed westbound on I-64.
The man who was injured was Gerald Sapp, 67, of Morristown, Tenn., said his daughter, Angela Taylor.
Sapp had pulled over at the rest stop at mile marker 60 in Midway to check his oil, Taylor said. He was driving a white Chevrolet pickup truck and pulling a car hauler, and he pulled into the area with transfer trucks, she said.
While Sapp had his hood up and was checking his oil, the tractor-trailer “backed up and hit my dad in the back with his trailer, crushing him in between the semi truck trailer and the bumper of his own vehicle. He pushed my dad’s truck back approximately 40ft and with enough force that it pushed the radiator fan into the motor,” Taylor wrote on the GoFundMe page she set up to help her father.
She said both of Sapp’s femurs were broken, his pelvis was crushed and he had compound fractures in both lower legs.
Taylor said in an interview late Friday that Sapp is a Vietnam veteran who runs his own business as a diesel mechanic. She said he enjoys fixing up cars as a hobby and had been on his way to pick up a car when the collision occurred.
Sapp is being cared for in the trauma unit at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital, Taylor told television station WATE in Knoxville. She said Friday that he remains in critical condition there and has undergone three lengthy surgeries.
“He’s alive, and that in and of itself, it’s a miracle,” she said. “God had his hand on him.”
But, she said, “he’s got a long road” ahead.
Taylor said she’s been contacting trucking companies to try to find people who might have been at the rest stop the afternoon of the collision, and one of the companies was able to provide police with the dash cam video released Friday.
She’s hopeful that it will generate tips for police.
“Somebody had to see this,” she said. “I’m very hopeful that somebody will come forward.”
Versailles police asked anyone with information about the hit-and-run collision to contact Sgt. Anthony Conner at (859) 873-3126.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 5:42 PM.
