It was just around sunset on Tuesday evening when 64-year-old Jeffrey R. Cottrell went out for a drive in his 2003 Ford F-150 pickup truck. He was traveling down Midvale Mine Road, a quiet stretch of asphalt also known as County Road 67 in Union Township. For locals living near Dennison, it was a typical late summer night along the rural county roads.
Around 7:39 p.m., something went wrong near the intersection with Canary Road. Cottrell was heading southwest when his pickup suddenly drifted off the right side of the pavement. The truck rolled onto the dirt shoulder, hit a post, and slammed directly into a nearby tree.
The heavy sound of the impact echoed through the quiet area, bringing emergency crews out right away. Firefighters from the Sherrodsville Fire Department and paramedics from Smith Ambulance rushed to the scene. They found the blue Ford F-150 badly damaged against the tree trunk.
Rescuers worked quickly to reach Cottrell inside the cab, but his injuries were too severe. Paramedics pronounced the 64-year-old dead right at the crash site. Neighbors and family members in Dennison soon learned the sad news about a man they saw around town every day.
State troopers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s New Philadelphia Post took over the crash scene to figure out what happened. During their initial look at the pickup, troopers found that Cottrell was not wearing his seatbelt when the vehicle left the roadway.
Investigators also noted that alcohol appears to have played a role in the accident. The Tuscarawas County Coroner’s Office took charge of the body to run routine tests, which will give officers a clearer picture of what happened in the minutes before the truck veered off course.
Assisting crews from the Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office and Chad’s Towing worked into the night to clear the wreckage and open the road back up. The crash remains under investigation by state troopers as the small community of Dennison mourns the loss of one of its own.
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