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Man Killed On I-75 Ramp Coached High School Football

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TBO.com

Published: March 22, 2009

Updated: 03/22/2009 09:05 pm

A 27-year-old assistant football coach from Braden River High School died Saturday night when the truck he was in flipped and crashed on an entrance ramp to Interstate 75 in Sarasota County.

Douglas Garrity of Bradenton was thrown from the 2001 Ford truck driven by Joshua Hunter, 32, also of Bradenton, when the truck spun out of control on the State Road 681 entrance ramp, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

Garrity was hired as an assistant varsity football coach in 2007, Braden River High School Principal Jim Pauley said. Garrity was known to lift weights with the football players and was a teacher for the school's dropout prevention program.

"He just had a passion for the kids," Pauley said. "Everybody loved him. He was just a nice young man."

Garrity attended Bayshore High School in Bradenton and graduated from Valdosta State University, where he also played college football.

Pauley said grief counselors will be at the school Monday.

"It's a tough time for our family," Pauley said.

The highway patrol gives this account of what happened about 11:50 p.m. Saturday:

Hunter lost control on a curve and the truck veered across the road before Hunter over-corrected and the truck went into a spin, troopers said. Garrity was in the rear seat and was thrown from the truck when it began to turn over. He was not wearing a seatbelt, the patrol said.

Two other passengers, Matthew Braselton, 26, of Bradenton, and James Hunter, 38, of Myakka City, were not injured. Braselton was wearing a seatbelt and James Hunter was not, the highway patrol said.

Driver Joshua Hunter, who was wearing a seatbelt, also escaped injury.

The crash remains under investigation.

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