Trooper collapses during training, dies at hospital

A Vermont State Police trooper collapsed during training at a Jericho firing range Thursday and later died at a Burlington hospital, officials said.

State police spokesman Scott Waterman confirmed the death late Thursday afternoon a few hours after the 2 p.m. incident at the Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho.

Although the name of the young trooper circulated among police throughout Vermont, his identity was being withheld from the public until the state police could locate all his next of kin.

Waterman said police planned to release no further information, including the name, until Friday.

There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Police shut down traffic on Williston Road in South Burlington near Interstate 89 to help Essex Rescue get swiftly to the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

The westbound lanes near the Sheraton hotel were cleared for seven police cruisers preceding the ambulance and six more state police cruisers following it. The procession took 35 seconds to pass, according to a video shot by a motorist stuck in traffic while headed in the opposite direction.

Gov. Peter Shumlin said the news of the trooper’s death “breaks my heart.”

“This is someone who ... has been an extraordinary public servant and has risked his life every day trying to make our lives more safe,” Shumlin said. “It’s just a heartbreaking tragedy.”

The trooper was a “very young person to lose” and was the father of two children, said Shumlin, who was campaigning Thursday for Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in New Hampshire.

Shumlin walked onto the stage a few minutes late to the campaign event because he was on the phone about the trooper’s death.

Shumlin said Keith Flynn, Vermont’s public safety commissioner, and Darren Springer, the governor’s chief of staff, briefed him.

Scott Coriell, Shumlin’s press secretary, said further statements would come from state police.

As the case began to unfold, Waterman and University of Vermont Medical Center spokesman Michael Carrese initially would say only the case was being treated as a “medical event.”

They said reports that the trooper was wounded by a gunshot were false.

Police would not say whether the training at the range was the annual mandated firearms qualification test or one of the Vermont State Police special enforcement units undergoing training or recruiting new members. The temperature was in the mid 80s during the afternoon as troopers went through their paces.

There was a substantial state police presence outside UVM Medical Center, including several cruisers with blue lights flashing.

Col. Matthew Birmingham, the new state police director, stood outside, worked the phones and spoke to department members, who were dressed in uniforms, camouflage gear and plainclothes. Flynn, who has overseen the public safety department since January 2011, also soon arrived. Their faces reflected the seriousness of the incident.

The entrance of the Emergency Room was cordoned off with yellow police tape, but the tape later was taken down.

Two hospital security officers later asked media members to move along.

An Essex ambulance remained parked in one of the hospital bays.

Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said he knew nothing about the trooper’s death until contacted by the Burlington Free Press mid-afternoon.

The Free Press received numerous phone calls about several intersections between Jericho and Burlington that were blocked off by law enforcement to help other police cruisers and Essex Rescue arrive swiftly at the hospital.

Several police agencies called the Free Press also looking for information about the emergency call. Officers said they overheard several public safety radio transmissions and the heightened pitch of the conversations.

There was strong sympathy and support on social media, including Facebook and Twitter, for the trooper and his family. Among the groups and individuals offering comments were Vermont State Police emergency dispatchers, South Burlington police, the Burlington Fire Department, Williston Fire and Rescue and the Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont.

“Our thoughts go out to our friends and family with the Vermont State Police as we mourn the loss of one or our brothers,” South Burlington police posted on the department Facebook page.

The trooper’s death marks at least the second young Vermont police officer to die in the past two years due to an apparent medical issue.

Michael A. Zemanek, 22, was a full-time sheriff’s deputy in Orange County and a part-time police officer in Northfield when he suffered a medical incident while driving on Interstate 89 in Waterbury on July 31, 2013.

Zemanek, who was off-duty, had a probable cardiac arrhythmia of undetermined natural origin, officials said. The manner of death for the 2012 Norwich University graduate was ruled “natural.”

The trooper’s death also marks the fifth on-duty fatality reported in the history of the Vermont State Police, which was founded July 1, 1947. The most recent death was the June 15, 2003, murder of Sgt. Michael Johnson.

Johnson, 39, had placed spikes on Interstate 91 in Windsor County to stop a fleeing felon, but the out of control car struck and killed the 16-year police veteran on Father’s Day. The driver was later sentenced to 26-33 years in prison.

This story was first posted online on Sept. 17, 2015. Contributing: April Burbank and Glenn Russell, Free Press. Contact Mike Donoghue at 660-1845 or mdonoghue@freepressmedia.com. Follow Mike on Twitter at www.twitter.com/FreepsMikeD.