{"id":40588,"date":"2023-12-31T18:46:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T23:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=40588"},"modified":"2023-12-31T18:46:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T23:46:54","slug":"a-two-vehicle-crash-occurred-at-deeson-road-and-greenfield-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/31\/a-two-vehicle-crash-occurred-at-deeson-road-and-greenfield-road\/","title":{"rendered":"A two-vehicle crash occurred at Deeson Road and Greenfield Road"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A two-vehicle crash occurred in the Kathleen area of Lakeland Saturday night, December 30, 2023, and resulted in the death of one of the drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies were dispatched at 8:54 pm to the crash scene at Deeson Road and Greenfield Road, along with members from Polk County Fire Rescue.<\/p>\n\n\n

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41-year-old Larry Varnum of Lakeland suffered serious injuries and was transported to a local hospital where he died shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other driver, an 18-year-old female from Lakeland was uninjured. Her 18-year-old female passenger from Colorado suffered minor injuries and was also transported to a local hospital for treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deeson Road was closed for about three hours while PCSO\u2019s Traffic Homicide Investigations and Forensic Investigations collected evidence and statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the preliminary investigation, it was determined that Mr. Varnum had been driving a black 1996 Honda motorcycle eastbound on Deeson Road, while a blue 2021 Ford Eco, occupied by the two females, was traveling westbound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ford Eco made a left turn to go south on Greenfield Road, and in doing so, it crossed the path of Mr. Varnum\u2019s motorcycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two vehicles collided, and Mr. Varnum was ejected from the motorcycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detectives are still trying to determine if Mr. Varnum was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash. A damaged helmet was found at the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, witness statements indicated that the motorcycle\u2019s headlight may not have been operating prior to the crash, and that too is still being examined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Varnum\u2019s driver\u2019s license was suspended in 2011, and he never had a motorcycle endorsement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This investigation remains ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A two-vehicle crash occurred in the Kathleen area of Lakeland Saturday night, December 30, 2023, and resulted in the death of one of the drivers. Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[7167],"class_list":["post-40588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-a-two-vehicle-crash-occurred-at-deeson-road-and-greenfield-road"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}