{"id":81054,"date":"2025-12-09T00:36:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T00:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/81054\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T00:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T00:36:13","slug":"north-texas-first-responder-dies-in-traffic-accident-monday-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/81054\/","title":{"rendered":"North Texas first responder dies in traffic accident Monday, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">A South <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/hunt-county\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/hunt-county\/\">Hunt County<\/a> deputy fire chief died Monday during a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/traffic-accidents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/traffic-accidents\/\">head-on collision<\/a> while he was returning home from work, South Hunt County Fire Rescue said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Officials announced in a Facebook post that 26-year-old Deputy Chief Austin Cooley died in a traffic accident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">\u201cHe worked tirelessly to serve the community and citizens of Hunt County and the City of Kaufman,\u201d the post said. \u201cHe will be truly missed and the impact he made on so many lives will be felt long into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">The accident occurred near the intersection of State Highway 34 and County Road 2186, approximately one mile south of Greenville.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking News<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__3beff secondaryRoman secondaryRoman-20 text-center text-gray-dark\">Get the latest breaking news from North Texas and beyond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__8MgJa flex flex-wrap text-gray-dark secondaryRoman secondaryRoman-10 text-center justify-center\">By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0<a class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__lU9-l border-b border-gray-dark hover_border-0 focus_border-0 active_border-0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/help\/terms-of-service\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__lU9-l border-b border-gray-dark hover_border-0 focus_border-0 active_border-0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Texas Department of Public Safety officers responded to reports of a crash involving two vehicles, officials said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Officers  said Cooley was driving northbound in his 2005 Honda Accord  when it crossed into the southbound lane and collided head-on with a 2013 Dodge Ram pickup.  Cooley was pronounced  dead at the scene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Investigators did not immediately say if they knew why Cooley drove into oncoming traffic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\"> He had been driving home from his job as an officer  with the  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/kaufman-county\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/kaufman-county\/\">Kaufman<\/a> Police Department at the time of the accident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Cooley grew up in North Texas and attended Collin County Community College and Dallas College\u2019s Eastfield Campus. He most recently lived in Wolfe City in Hunt County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">It remains unclear whether the driver of the truck was injured in the crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">No further information about the incident was immediately available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A South Hunt County deputy fire chief died Monday during a head-on collision while he was returning home&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13669,324,3677,27,29,28,975,840],"class_list":["post-81054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-accidental-death","tag-dallas-fortworth","tag-hunt-county","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-traffic-accidents","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}