Deputies arrest passenger after fiery crash

Sheriff’s deputies arrested a passenger after the car he was in flipped over and caught fire in a single-vehicle accident in southeastern Bartholomew County.

Deputies were sent to the accident at about 6:43 p.m. Wednesday at County Road 340E, south of County Road 650S. Witnesses reported the car was overturned and on fire.

Deputies found the driver, Juan Mendez, 35, Columbus, on the ground outside the vehicle, and found the passenger, Lazaro Hernandez-Moheno, 52, 312 S. Mapleton St., walking in a nearby field, deputies said.

Hernandez-Moheno told deputies the two were traveling north on County Road 340E when the vehicle left the road and rolled several times, deputies said. Both men got out of the vehicle before it caught fire.

Mendez was transported by helicopter to Methodist Hospital, Indianapolis, after the accident but hospital officials said they do not have a record of him as a patient there.

Hernandez-Moheno was not injured but was arrested on a Bartholomew County warrant and is incarcerated in the Bartholomew County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bond, deputies said.