A Main Street family is reeling this week after their dog was killed Friday, December 13, by a driver who reportedly struck the dog with their vehicle, saw and acknowledged the dog was injured, and then left the scene.

Maureen Rohmer was walking her daughter’s dog, a 12-year-old Golden retriver named Coby, around last Friday afternoon, following a routine and path long familiar to both of them.

In a letter to the editor this week, Megan Gioffe writes that as her mother and Coby were on the sidewalk between Newtown Savings Bank and Newtown General Store “a car sped into the driveway and struck Coby.” He was on a leash, “on the sidewalk, with my mom just feet behind him holding on,” Gioffe’s letter continues.

Gioffe, who works out of the area, was stuck in traffic on her commute home, so Rohmer was walking Coby for her.

“She did me a favor and was walking him for me. It’s something we always do,” Gioffe said Wednesday morning. “I was still about 20 minutes away.”

Wednesday afternoon, Rohmer talked about what happened while visiting her friends and Main Street neighbors Karin Boyle and Mark Poireer.

She said she and Coby were “right at the end of the driveway for Newtown Savings Bank, he was just a couple of steps ahead of me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a car that had been heading north on Main Street,” she told The Newtown Bee.

“He must have gotten a signal from the southbound traffic, because he just cut across and then his front tire, and then his back tire, rolled right over Coby,” she said, her voice shaking.

Rohmer said the driver, a male, “stopped about 20 feet down the driveway, and he came and he said ‘Oh he should be fine.’

“I said, ‘I don’t think so, you rolled over him twice,’” she remembered saying. Rohmer asked the man to stay with her and the dog. “He asked his name, and petted him,” she recalled.

“I asked him if he would stand toward the road and make sure a second car wouldn’t come in and hit us — I was on the driveway, kneeling with the dog — but he couldn’t seem to do that,” she said.

Rohmer also called her daughter.

“She was a wreck, obviously,” Gioffe said. “She wanted to know how far away I was, she told me Coby had been struck, and she needed help.”

Gioffe told her mother to call Mark Poirier. Meanwhile, Gioffe called another friend of hers, someone she knew “would be able to pick up this 70-pound dog and help my mother,” she said.

Poirer who lives at 53 Main Street, just five doors north of where Rohmer and Coby were located, arrived first.

“I got the call from Maureen, and thought she was calling about the luminaria and whether we were supposed to light them,” he said.

Friday was the 40th annual tree lighting event at Ram Pasture. As a prelude, for decades, luminaria has lined area roadways including Main Street. “But then I heard the distress in her voice, and she told me what had happened,” he said.

“I parked at Edmond Town Hall and then started running toward Maureen and Coby,” he said. “As I got close, though, I could see Coby was in bad shape so I went back to get my car.”

The driver of the vehicle that hit Coby was still in the driveway, said Poirer, who also noted how far into the driveway the vehicle was parked.

“He clearly hadn’t stopped or even slowed down until well after he’d hit Coby,” he said. “I don’t know how he didn’t see him. He’s a big dog, he’s a light color, and it was still daylight.”

Poirer said while it was clear Coby was hurting, “he smiled at me as I approached. He still smiled at me.”

At some point, the unidentified driver returned to his vehicle and drove away. Poirer and Rohmer were focused on Coby.

“I got a towel and wrapped him up in it and put him in my car,” he continued. Poirer and Rohmer drove immediately to Newtown Veterinary Services, an emergency clinic on Church Hill Road.

“They were amazing,” Poirer said Wednesday afternoon. “They whisked him in right away, but they couldn’t save him.”

‘Complete Disregard’

Coby was adopted by Gioffe in 2020.

“He’d just celebrated his 12th birthday, and he loved everyone,” she said.

“Everybody knew him,” she said Wednesday morning. “We are a neighborhood, and we all walk our dogs here, we exercise here. This is our street and our neighborhood. It’s horrible to watch people act with such disregard in our neighborhood.

“I don’t think people think of it as people living here, and playing here, and entertaining here. They use this road to get somewhere, but they don’t think about the fact that it’s still a neighborhood even though the road is so busy,” she said.

Her mother echoed those sentiments that afternoon.

“Coby was family,” Rohmer said. “He loved sitting in front of the house, watching everyone go by, taking in everything. Everyone who knew him, loved him.”

Poirer said Coby “shared his toys with everyone and every animal. He loved playing.”

It is Coby’s family’s hope that what happened last Friday afternoon may be the impetus for change.

“Maybe Coby’s death can be something that leads to something to improve the situation,” Rohmer said. “I think our representatives need to talk at the state level about this not being an alternate route every time something happens on the highway.

“There’s too much traffic here,” she said. “I notice many mornings, between 8 and 9 am, cars are still lined up from the traffic light at Glover Avenue to in front of my house. It’s just too much volume.”

Rohmer lives at 27 Main Street, approximately one-third of a mile north of the four-way intersection of Glover Avenue, South Main Street, Sugar Street and Main Street.

“It’s such a pretty neighborhood, but people don’t really register that there are sidewalks where people really live and walk,” Rohmer said.

Her friends agree.

Boyle said she has seen an increase in speeding, running stop signs “and just complete disregard for driving rules” in recent years.

“We see really crazy things every day,” she said. Drivers “use the shoulders of Main Street as not only a travel lane, but a travel lane without limits.”

Main Street residents are fully aware, she said, that they live along a state road, “but there are things that can be done locally,” she added.

Poirer said he sees “a growing disregard for rules, property and people.”

Gioffe said while many people have reached out since Friday to offer their condolences to her family, there have also been many conversations about traffic and road conditions.

“Many have experienced this themselves,” she said. “There are so many similar stories of people being nearly hit. We all have that.

“There’s a sense that we can really empathize with my mother because it could have happened to any of us,” she said.

Boyle said no one should feel like they have to take their life in their hands when they go for a walk.

“Look at that man on Church Hill Road, just a few weeks ago,” she said.

Botsford Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Pete Blomberg died October 28 after being struck by a vehicle. Blomberg was in a crosswalk in Sandy Hook Center, heading toward the Board of Fire Commissioners annual meeting that evening.

“You shouldn’t have to worry while crossing the road to go to a meeting,” Boyle said.

Newtown Police Department Lieutenant Scott Smith told The Newtown Bee this week if the driver of the vehicle that hit Coby on December 13 is located and positively identified, they would face at least a charge of evading responsibility.

“We would look into any other violations that occurred, but the one certain is that misdemeanor, the evading,” he said.

Anyone who witnessed the incident on Friday, December 13, around 4 pm, is asked to contact Newtown Police Officer Kurt Kling at the police department, 203-426-5841. Reference case #2400018835.

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.

Coby, a golden retriever that had just celebrated his 12th birthday, was struck by a vehicle while being walked along a Main Street sidewalk late Friday afternoon, December 13. The driver stopped, acknowledged that he’d hit the dog, and then left. Coby died from his injuries. —Meghan Gioffe photo