CERESCO, Neb. (AP) — A veteran police officer was killed when his cruiser was struck by another vehicle after he made a traffic stop in eastern Nebraska, authorities said Saturday.

The Nebraska State Patrol said in a news release that Ceresco Police Officer Ross Bartlett, 54, stopped a car about a mile south of Ceresco on Highway 77 about 7:30 p.m. Friday. Both vehicles were parked on the shoulder, and the driver and officer were both seated in their vehicles, when a pickup truck rear-ended the police cruiser, pushing it into the stopped car, the State Patrol statement said.

First responders arrived a few minutes later and found bystanders attempting to help Bartlett and the others involved in the crash. He flown to a hospital in Lincoln, where he was pronounced dead.

The driver of the car, a 27-year-old Lincoln man, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The pickup driver, a 49-year-old man from the city of Crete, was not seriously hurt.