The Associated Press
JOHNSTOWN, Pa.— A drunken driver had just left a firefighters convention before he was involved in a fatal car accident, a police chief said.
John P. Smoter, a member of the East Taylor Township Fire Department, was traveling from the firefighters convention Friday evening when his pickup truck crossed the center line on Route 271 and hit Paul Bongiovanni’s vehicle, Jackson Township police Chief Robert Fatula said.
Smoter, 29, of Johnstown, had a blood-alcohol level that was twice the legal limit, Fatula said.
Fatula on Wednesday was still investigating the head-on crash that killed Bongiovanni, 83, of Johnstown, but he said it appeared to be the second death linked to the Central District Firemen’s Convention held last weekend in Nanty Glo.
Also on Friday, Ray E. Stringer, the chief of the Neptune Volunteer Fire Department in Tyrone, died following a fight at a bar in the Nanty Glo Veterans of Foreign Wars building, police said.
Smoter had not been charged with any crime as of Wednesday, but charges could be filed by the end of the week, Fatula said.
A woman who answered a telephone number listed under Smoter’s name said Smoter did not want to comment.
Bongiovanni died hours after the accident at a hospital. His wife, Adaline, 80, was in fair condition at Memorial Medical Center Wednesday, a hospital spokesman said.