A Jefferson County paramedic setting up flares to alert drivers to a car accident was killed Tuesday morning when a semi-truck jackknifed and the trailer rolled on top of him.

Robert Shawn Ervin, 43, of Madras was pronounced dead at the scene at about 8:30 a.m., according to an Oregon State Police news release.

Ervin, a paramedic with Jefferson County Emergency Medical Services, and two other medics had been dispatched to the accident about five miles south of Madras with a fire engine.

No one was injured in the accident.

Ervin and his crew drove just below the top of a rise on Highway 97, and Ervin began setting flares to alert drivers to the accident.

Visibility was about 100 yards, and the road was covered with black ice, said Earl Cordes, chief of Jefferson County Fire District No. 1.

Cordes said a crew of rescue workers, the same ones that responded to the Dec. 5. accident where family members of a Culver firefighter were killed when their car struck a train, saw Ervin cross the highway to set flares and then saw the semi come over the top of the hill and the driver hit his brakes.

”He just skidded on the black ice and the truck jackknifed,” Cordes said.

The southbound semi, driven by Gordon Len Kenn, 31, hit the ambulance head on and totaled it, causing minor injuries to the two medics still inside.

The semi-trailer went sideways and then flipped, Cordes said, noting rescue workers could only watch as it appeared Ervin tried to get out of the way as the trailer rolled toward him.

”He only had 10 to six feet to go before he would have cleared the trailer,” Cordes said.

Ervin was a training coordinator and a shift supervisor for the ambulance service out of Madras.

”He was an awesome leader,” said volunteer Luke Husky who had worked alongside Ervin several times at accident scenes.

Volunteers and staff at the ambulance service are

stunned by the incident and ambulance services from Redmond, Prineville and Warm Springs are helping to cover medical calls while medics deal emotionally with the incident, said Jefferson County Emergency Medical Services manager George Heckathorn.

The accident remains under investigation, state police said.

Tom Peterson can be reached at 541-383-0304 or tpeterson@bendbulletin.com.