Driver who struck and killed veterinarian arrested

Knoxville, Tenn.

-- A man who last week struck and killed a veterinarian while she tried to save a dog hit by a car has been arrested.

Veterinarian Kathryn Gilpatrick, 37, was struck and killed by the hit-and-run driver April 15 while trying to save a neighbor’s two dogs that were hit by a car. One dog was dead on the scene, but while Gilpatrick started to help the other, another car hit her and fled the scene.

The driver of the vehicle, Walter Gary Flynn, was detained April 20 and charged with leaving the scene of an accident with death or injury, criminally negligent homicide, driving while license revoked and violation of the financial responsibility law for driving without insurance, according to Knoxville police. As of press time, he was being held in the Knox County Detention Facility on a $13,500 bond.

Gilpatrick, who worked at Cat Clinic in Knoxville, was taken immediately to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, but she died the next morning from her injuries.

Roselyn, the 4-month-old black Labrador retriever Gilpatrick was assisting at the time of the accident, was taken to Animal Emergency Critical Care and Referral Center in Knoxville and survived.

Read more about Gilpatrick in the June issue of DVM Newsmagazine.