during a press conference livestreamed by sister station WFMZ. <\/a><\/p>\nBivens said Pahira was standing along the shoulder, speaking with the driver of a tractor-trailer, when another tractor-trailer left the roadway.<\/p>\n
That tractor-trailer struck Pahira and continued with “a high rate of speed and a lot of force.” The truck then caught on fire, while Pahira was trapped under the front-end of the truck, Bivens said. <\/p>\n
Emergency crews helped remove Pahira from under the truck and rendered aid. He was taken to a local hospital, but life-saving measures were unsuccessful. <\/p>\n
Video of the crash and fire in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (Jelissa DW)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Bivens said Pahira suffered severe injuries and never regained consciousness. <\/p>\n
“The man died a hero,” Bivens said. “He was an outstanding trooper.”<\/p>\n
State police are investigating the crash and said they’re currently unsure what led to the crash. Bivens said it was too early to say whether the tractor-trailer driver would face charges. <\/p>\n
Gov. Josh Shapiro confirmed the driver was being treated at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Their condition is unclear at this time.<\/p>\n
Shapiro said flags will fly at half-staff to honor Pahira’s service. <\/p>\n
Pahira received the State Police Commendation Medal in June 2016, according to a story from Skook News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 A Pennsylvania State Police trooper was killed Wednesday morning after he was struck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-233008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}