Franklin Man Dies in Moped Accident

A 54-year-old Franklin, Wisconsin, man died Tuesday after being ejected from a moped he was driving on Highway 42 in Liberty Grove.

As of the deadline for this issue of the Peninsula Pulse, the man’s name was being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

According to the preliminary report from the Door County Sheriff’s Office, the call was dispatched June 27 at 7:21 pm as a one-vehicle crash on Highway 42 north of Seaquist Road. The preliminary investigation indicated that a 2021 Taizhou Zhongneng Wolf RX-50 moped was traveling southbound on Highway 42 when the driver lost control, entered the west ditch, was ejected from the moped and struck a culvert pipe. 

The driver was transported by an Eagle III helicopter from the Ephraim-Gibraltar Airport to the Door County Medical Center with life-threatening injuries. He was then airlifted to a Green Bay hospital, where he succumbed to injuries sustained in the crash, according to the sheriff’s office.

The incident remains under investigation, and no other information is being released at this time. 

This is the third fatal crash in Door County in 2023. The first took place Jan. 28 when Nathan W. McKillen, 33, of Ellison Bay, died at the scene of a one-vehicle crash on Highway 42 on the Ellison Bay hill in Liberty Grove after he lost control of the vehicle he was driving. 

The second fatality occurred in a one-vehicle crash in the Town of Forestville on April 14 when the driver – 32-year-old Gildardo Valazquez, a Mexican national who was working in the area – died after rolling the sport utility vehicle he was driving.

Emergency personnel who responded to the June 27 accident in addition to the Door County Sheriff’s Office included the Sister Bay-Liberty Grove Fire Department, the Sister Bay-Liberty Grove First Responders and Door County Emergency Services.