A semi-truck driver claims his brakes failed as he went through a stop sign and killed a 49-year-old Wisconsin man last week.

Fifty-five-year-old Ronald Jay Ebert of St. Paul told deputies that he was driving a semi-truck southbound on Highway E when he came to the intersection with Highway 48. Ebert said he braked, but a mechanical problem caused the brakes to fail.

Ebert said he hit the 2004 Chevrolet pickup that was traveling westbound on Highway 48. Seventy-five-year-old Allan Seierstad of Cumberland, Wisconsin, was driving, and 49-year-old Ricky Gauthier of Radisson, Wisconsin, was the passenger.

The crash caused both vehicles to go off the road into a ditch, and both Seierstad and Gauthier had to be extricated, according to reports. Seierstad was flown to a Twin Cities hospital for his injuries, and Gauthier was sent to Cumberland Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office says Gauthier died at the hospital from his injuries.