Kathy Groshans killed by wrong-way driver Brian O’Leary: police

An upstate New York grandmother was killed on Monday when a pickup truck driver traveling the wrong way during a police pursuit collided head-on with the car she and her family were traveling in, announced the authorities.

Kathy Groshans, 47, was pronounced dead after Brian O’Leary, 37, rammed his Ford F-150 truck into the 2019 Dodge Ram driven by her husband Dale Groshans, 66, on Interstate 87 in Lewis , the state police said.

Their two young grandsons, ages 4 and 7, were airlifted to the University of Vermont Medical Center across the border in Burlington after being rushed to a Plattsburgh hospital for internal injuries, New York State Police said.

Dale Groshans was also taken to hospital with head trauma. They are all now in stable condition.

The horrific crash ended a police chase that began when callers alerted authorities to a van traveling the wrong way in Essex County around 7:39 p.m., police said.

They found O’Leary still heading north in the southbound lanes, police said. When officers attempted to arrest him, he continued driving, leading to a chase.

O’Leary traveled about 30 miles against the current before the head-on collision with the Groshans’ truck, police said.

“Kathy Jo, you were a beautiful soul with one of the biggest, kindest hearts that ever lived. I am broken inside without you, you were the best sister I could have ever wished for,” her grieving sister Lacey Boyea LaCourse wrote on Facebook, according to the Sun Community News.

“I will miss you until my last breath. I just don’t know what else to say; I don’t know what to do without you.

Groshans died of hemorrhage due to fractures from blunt trauma, according to her autopsy.

A fundraising page has been created for her husband and two children, as well as funeral expenses.

O’Leary, a resident of East Millinocket, Maine, was also airlifted to the University of Vermont Medical Center with life-threatening injuries including head trauma and internal injuries. It is listed in critical condition.

He was in possession of a loaded handgun during the chase, which he did not have a license to carry in New York, authorities said.

The accident investigation is ongoing as authorities work on a number of search warrants for vehicles, electronic devices and biological evidence, state police said.