Ontario County sheriff speaks about deadly accident involving motor home

CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — In a freak accident, a Yates County man died after a motor home fell on him while he was attempting to change a tire. The accident happened on State Route 21 in Canandaigua, leading to a four-hour roadway closure.

Deputies reported that at 5 p.m., 38-year-old Jarod Brown of Dundee was changing a tire under a motor home when it slipped off the jack, trapping him beneath. Brown was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ontario County Sheriff David Cirencione said that a local from Ontario County that were coming back from a vacation in the south in their 30-foot Winnebago motor home driving northbound on Route 21 in South Canandaigua when the motor home began to vibrate and jerk, so the driver safely pulled over to the side of the road. He called his roadside assistance program for flat-side dollies.

The roadside assistance program dispatched assistance to them and it was from Parmenter Tire on Route 14 in Phelps.

“Mr. Brown worked with them, comes out, he used a hydraulic bottle jack to lift the back of the motor home up, which was sufficient for him to get the flat tire set off but then, naturally you need more room between the axel and the ground to get the tire that’s inflated, full of air, and when he realized he didn’t have enough room to do that, he climbed back under the vehicle in an attempt to manipulate the jack more and at this point, from our investigation it looks like the jack came off the blocks of wood he had had them on,” said Cirencione. “Did something happen with the jack, was it just too much weight, was it just not set as perfectly as it could have been, were there other things that should have been done, that’s all stuff that we’ll work through and sort out but certainly we don’t see any criminality here on behalf of anybody. Just a horrible, unfortunate circumstance.” 

Canandaigua firefighters and Ambulance had the motorhome up and the victim out within 15 minutes but it was too late.  

The first responders and the couple who own the motor home are struggling to cope with the horrific tragedy they witnessed.  

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Ontario County Sheriff’s Office are investigating.