This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Onetime Deseret News reporter Derek Thomas Jensen was fatally struck while riding his bicycle in Alabama Thursday morning.
The Anniston ( Ala.) Star newspaper reports that Jensen, 37, of Oxford, Ala., was hit by a truck about 6:30 a.m. on Golden Springs Road, near Harvest Church. Two passing nurses stopped to help but were unable to revive Jensen, who was pronounced dead at 7:20 a.m. Eastern Time.
Jensen, the external affairs director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Center for Domestic Preparedness at Fort McClellan, is survived by his wife Mina and three children, ages 10, 7 and 1.
He had left his nearly five-year stint as a police reporter at the Deseret News in December 2003 to take a job as a public information officer with the Utah Department of Public Safety's Homeland Security Division. On August 2006, he went to work for FEMA's Region VIII office in Denver, and took the job at Fort McClellan in November 2010.
Jensen earned his bachelor's degree in Asian Studies from Utah State University in 1999, and had earned his associate's degree in Communications earlier from Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho.
Anniston police Sgt. Scott Grissom said a 2001 Chevrolet Silverado on the inner northbound lane on Golden Springs Road struck Jensen while it was merging into the outside lane.
The accident remained under investigation Thursday, Grissom said.
The victim should not be confused with Derek P. Jensen, a former reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune.