The Indiana State Police is seeking the hit-and-run driver of a semi-tractor which struck and killed a Hobart man on Saturday as he was changing a flat tire on the Indiana Toll Road near Portage.

The victim has been identified as Andrew J. Sajda Sr., 60. Police said that he suffered massive head and body injuries.

According to police, at 5:50 a.m. a trooper stopped to check on a 2005 Nissan pickup truck disabled by a flat driver’s front tire on the shoulder of the eastbound lanes of the Toll Road at the 28.7 mile marker. The driver of the Nissan, Andrew Sajda Jr., 31, advised the trooper that his father was en route to help him change the flat.

Then, at 6:03 a.m., dispatch received a 911 call reporting two persons’ having been struck while outside their vehicles. Investigators determined that Sajda Sr. had arrived to assist his son and parked his own vehicle, a 2007 Ford, in front of the Nissan. The Nissan was parked well off the roadway on the outside shoulder, Sajda Jr. was kneeling by the pickup and adjusting the jack, and Sajda Sr. was holding the tire when an unknown semi-tractor left the roadway and struck both father and son, police said.

Sajda Sr. was thrown between the Nissan and the Ford, police said, while Sajda Jr. landed in the right lane. The father was pronounced dead at the scene, the son transported to Porter Valparaiso Hospital Campus with multiple contusions and abrasions and broken vertebrae to his back.

The trucker, meanwhile, did not stop and left the scene. Neither the Nissan nor the Ford was hit.

Police said that evidence recovered from the scene indicates the suspect truck to be a Mack semi-tractor manufactured between 1995 and 2000. The tractor will have noticeable damage to the passenger’s side steer tire, police said.

Anyone with information about the crash, the trucker, or the truck should contact Det. Don Curl of the ISP at 574-234-4157.

Posted 2/4/2008