Father dies in crash while visiting daughter in U.S.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - One person is dead after a collision on State Road 38, according to Lafayette police.

Dispatchers say the call reporting the crash came in around 12:20 p.m. Tuesday.

Two vehicles had collided near Tractor Supply Company on State Road 38 (SR 38), near Veterans Memorial Parkway in Lafayette.

According to Lafayette police, 23-year-old Ning Zhu of Lafayette was driving an Audi east on SR 38 when, for unknown reasons, she began slowing in the left lane next to a lane-crossover area.

Twenty-one-year-old Jeffrey Brand of Lafayette was driving a pickup truck and was also eastbound on 38, following the Audi. Brand said he was looking at the console area of his truck and did not recognize that Zhu’s car was slowing down.

The pickup then rear-ended the passenger car, pushing it across the cross-over area. The car came to rest facing east in the westbound lanes of 38, and the pickup came to rest facing a northerly direction in the cross-over median area.

Jianping Zhu, 53, from China, was in the front passenger seat of the Audi. Both he and his daughter, who he was visiting, were wearing seatbelts. Jianping died on the scene of the crash from his injuries. Ning was transported to St. Elizabeth East Hospital.

The airbags on Brand’s pickup truck deployed and he refused medical treatment at the scene of the crash.

Both drivers were taken for drug and alcohol screening, as is standard procedure.

Police say the westbound lanes of State Road 38 were closed from Veterans Memorial Parkway to Creasy Lane for roughly 2.5 hours for cleanup.