Defect found in truck that backed over man

By Ed Runyan

The man was legally blind but had some vision in one eye.

AUSTINTOWN — Police have determined that the “backup beeper” on the truck that ran over a legally blind Austintown man Friday, killing him, was not working at the time of the accident.

They are still looking into whether any state or federal regulations require such a device to be used on a garbage truck of the type involved in Friday’s accident.

Austintown Police Sgt. Steve Garstka said his department has not completed its investigation into the accident that killed Anthony Latosky, 29, of Austintown, Friday afternoon and still wants to talk to any witnesses who saw the accident.

He declined to comment on what the driver of the truck, Clement Davis, 63, of Warren, told officers about why the accident occurred.

He said that when the investigation is complete in a few days, his department will turn over its findings to Kenneth Cardinal, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, and Cardinal will determine whether any criminal charges are warranted.

Davis was backing up his garbage truck for Phoenix Disposal of Youngstown from a private driveway on South Raccoon Road near Woodleigh Lane about 12:53 p.m. Friday when he ran over Latosky, who was pronounced dead later at St. Elizabeth Health Center.

A person who answered the phone at Phoenix Disposal on Mahoning Avenue said he was unable to answer any questions about the accident.

Police would like to question a female in a blue van who may have witnessed the accident.

Garstka said Latosky was walking north on the east side of the road and had a white-tipped, red and white walking cane that identified him as being blind.

One of Latosky’s sisters, Angela Keshock, of Salem, said Monday her brother regularly walked along Raccoon Road from a friend’s house near his home on Sandalwood Lane to the Wedgewood Plaza, as he did that day.

He was not completely blind, having the ability to see a little in one eye, Keshock said. Since there is no sidewalk along South Raccoon Road, her brother walked in the grass, she said.

Anthony Latosky’s mother, Bernice Latosky, with whom Anthony lived, said police notified her of the accident shortly after it happened. She went to the scene and eventually found herself face-to-face with Davis, the driver of the truck that hit her son.

He was crying.

“He kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’ I said, ‘It’s OK,’” she said.

Bernice Latosky and her two daughters, Keshock and Starr Latosky of Parma, said they remain positive about Anthony’s death because Anthony showed such a positive attitude, despite multiple disabilities.

“We’re just glad he’s not suffering,” Bernice said.

Anthony was born with a cleft palate, had been in a coma, and suffered from diabetes, a heart murmur and curvature of the spine.

But he became a second-degree black belt in martial arts at age 14 and worked as parts delivery driver until he became blind in 2002 after a failed Lasik vision-correction surgery in Cleveland.

Just after the eye problems began, he suffered three strokes and needed three months of therapy to regain use of his limbs, Bernice said.

Even after he became blind, he rode a horse, worked on an old car, cut the grass on the family’s riding mower and took a flight to Nashville alone.

“He always had a good sense of humor about everything that happened,” said Starr Latosky. Family members added that he was “very personable” and “made friends all over.”

Keshock said she worried about her brother walking along the road.

“You wanted him to be independent but you wanted to protect him,” Keshock said. “He didn’t like that. He said, ‘You’re smothering me.’”

Nonetheless, Keshock said she thinks her brother was very cautious on the main roads, and she never thought something like this would end his life. “I would have never expected this. I would have expected a more drawn-out thing” of a medical nature, she said.

runyan@vindy.com