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A sergeant with the Wasatch County Sheriff's Office collapsed and died during a traffic stop in Provo Canyon Thursday morning.
Around 8:30 a.m., Sgt. G. Scott Hathcock pulled a driver over for speeding on U.S. Highway 189, just west of Deer Creek Reservoir, according to Trooper Cameron Roden of the Utah Highway Patrol. While Hathcock was talking to the driver at her window, the sergeant collapsed. The driver called 911 and a passerby stopped and administered CPR, but neither he nor EMTs who arrived at the scene could revive Hathcock, Roden said.
Roden said authorities have not determined a cause of death for Hathcock, a 48-year-old Heber City resident. An autopsy will be conducted by the medical examiner's office.
"It's definitely a medical problem, but they don't know what it was," Roden said.
Capt. John Rogers of the Wasatch County Sheriff's Office said Hathcock was not known to have any pre-existing medical conditions that would explain why he collapsed.
"He would have been one of the two or three least likely guys in our department" to have something like this happen, Rogers said.
Nothing happened during the traffic stop that would've caused Hathcock to collapse, Rogers said.
Hathcock had served the Wasatch County Sheriff's Office full-time since 2007, and served part-time for 12 years before that. Prior to joining the sheriff's office as a full-time employee, he spent more than 20 years with UHP before retiring about two years ago.
"Sgt. Hathcock was the ultimate professional, and was respected by all who worked with him. He will be greatly missed," Wasatch County Sheriff Ken Van Wagoner said in a written statement.
During his time with UHP, Hathcock taught classes at the state police academy. Rogers estimated that up to 80 percent of the police officers in the state have attended one of his classes. He was well known and well liked in Utah's law enforcement community, Rogers said.
"If you were to call virtually any police department in the state and say, 'Scott Hathcock, what do you think of him?' they would say he's awesome," Rogers said. "He was very well respected everywhere. If we could all be half as well liked as Scott, we'd all be probably 50 percent better than we are now."
Hathcock is survived by his wife and two sons, ages 12 and 21.
• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or
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