ATV crash near Rice leaves 71-year-old man dead
LANGOLA TOWNSHIP, Minn. (FOX 9) - A crash involving a car and an ATV near Rice, Minnesota, left a man dead on Monday afternoon.
The Benton County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that its deputies responded to a report of a crash in Langola Township just before 2 p.m. in the 17000 block of 5th Avenue Northwest.
At the scene, found a 2002 Mazda 626 that had crashed into a Honda Ranchman ATV.
The rider of the ATV, Frank Andrew Hohmann, 71, of Rice, was found lying on the east side of the road suffering from critical injuries. He was then pronounced dead at the scene of the crash.
The driver of the Mazda, a 54-year-old man from South Haven, was not injured.
According to the sheriff's office, the Mazda driver was northbound on 5th Avenue Northwest when he claimed he saw a cat run into the road in front of him. The man then swerved right to avoid the cat, drove on the shoulder for a short distance, and then returned to the roadway.
The Mazda driver told law enforcement that he saw Hohmann "on the ATV for the first time immediately in front of his car" driving north in the northbound traffic lane. When the Mazda driver tried to stop, he claimed he was unable to avoid crashing with Hohmann's ATV, according to the sheriff's office.
Deputies say they did not detect any signs of impairment from the Mazda driver at the scene of the crash.
The crash remains under investigation.