MONTGOMERY – A man who was changing a tire on his pickup truck was killed instantly when he was struck by a southbound tractor-trailer truck at Route 15 and Cemetery Hill Road in Brady Township about 2:40 p.m. Thursday, May 22, according to Lycoming County Coroner Charles E. Kiessling Jr.

Clinton Township volunteer firefighters responded to the crash.

The victim, Willis A. Foley, 70, of Camden, South Carolina, was riding with a second man, and the two stopped to change a flat tire that was on the driver’s side of the truck. The truck was pulling “a five-wheel stock trailer loaded with personal belongings,” Chief Deputy County Coroner Jerold Ross said.

The pickup truck and trailer had pulled off the road and onto the west berm as far as possible, Ross said. “He was parked right along the bank,” he added. Foley had pulled his truck off on to the west shoulder of Route 15 after it became disabled between Pinchtown and Cemetery Hill roads.

It was unknown what caused the southbound tractor-trailer driver to cross the fog line and hit first the stock trailer, the victim and then the pickup.

It was reported that the victim apparently saw the rig coming at him and pushed his friend underneath the stock trailer, getting him out of harm’s way, Ross said he was told. The second man escaped with only minor injuries and was treated at the scene.

Ross declared the victim dead at the scene of multiple blunt force trauma injuries.

While the northbound lane remained open, the southbound lanes of Route 15 from Route 54 in Clinton Township were closed for at least six hours. Fire police and employees of the state Department of Transportation detoured traffic through Montgomery.

Police did not release the identity of the truck driver other than to say he was 40 and from the Watsontown area. The investigation is ongoing, police said.