Jason Sallee, Clinton County, Ohio: Early morning drive ends in tragedy as head-on collision on Route 73 takes Wilmington resident.

It was barely past 6:30 on a Wednesday morning when Jason Sallee pulled out onto State Route 73. The 41-year-old Wilmington local was heading west in his 2022 Ford Edge, navigating his regular routine through Chester Township. Sky was just starting to brighten over the rural stretches of Clinton County.

A few miles down the road, two eastbound vehicles were moving along the same two-lane asphalt. Ahead was a 2002 Ford F-250 pickup driven by 51-year-old Phillip Solomon of South Lebanon. Right behind him came a Hino box truck operated by 32-year-old Abdullatif Hlal out of West Chester.

At the intersection of Williams Road, Solomon slowed his pickup to a complete stop, preparing to make a left turn. The driver behind him reacted in a fraction of a second. Trying to avoid slamming into the back of Solomon’s stopped truck, Hlal cut his steering wheel sharply to the left.

That single split-second decision carried the heavy box truck directly across the painted yellow centerline. It put the vehicle square in the path of oncoming westbound traffic. Sallee had no room to maneuver and no time to get out of the way.

The box truck hit Sallee’s Ford Edge head-on near the intersection. The violence of the impact knocked the SUV clear off the right shoulder of the road. State troopers and emergency crews from Wilmington and Chester Township rushed to the scene right after the 6:27 a.m. dispatch call.

First responders found Sallee trapped inside the crushed vehicle. Despite their efforts, the Clinton County Coroner’s Office pronounced the 41-year-old dead at the scene. Hlal was pulled from his vehicle and taken by ground ambulance to Clinton Regional Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, while Solomon walked away without harm.

By mid-morning, tow trucks cleared the debris and State Route 73 reopened to traffic, but the weight of the loss settled quickly over Wilmington. Sallee leaves behind a circle of family, friends, and neighbors grieving a life cut short on an ordinary local highway. Troopers with the Wilmington Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol continue to reconstruct the crash.