Worth County sheriff’s deputy accidentally runs over man in roadway

SYLVESTER — The Georgia State Patrol is investigating an incident on Tuesday in which a Worth County sheriff’s deputy accidentally ran over someone with his patrol car.

The victim was dead following the accident, but officers are unsure whether he was dead before being struck by the patrol car or if the accident caused the fatality.

Trooper Daniel Joiner with the GSP in Albany said the deputy was traveling north on Georgia Highway 33 near the John Deere distributorship shortly before 4 a.m. when he ran over Brian Overstreet, 31, who was lying face-up in the roadway.

“The bottom of the radiator struck (Overstreet) in the head and dragged him for less than 15 feet before the deputy could stop,” Joiner said.

The reason why Overstreet was in the road isn’t clear, officials say, but a pending results of an autopsy and toxicology test could possible shed some light of the case.

“We don’t know if he’d been drinking or what sort of drugs he may have had in his system,” Joiner said. “We won’t expect to know anything more for about another month.”

Joiner said it would have been nearly impossible for anyone traveling at 30 mph or more to have seen Overstreet in the dark.