FREEMAN TOWNSHIP — A doctor who served the Franklin County community for decades and braved warlords opposed to his work in developing nations was killed Tuesday in a car crash, police said.
Cameron Bopp, 67, of New Vineyard died instantly when his 2004 Volkswagen station wagon crashed into trees on Route 145 in Freeman Township, police said.
The car was traveling north downhill at what appeared to be a high rate of speed, according to Sheriff Scott Nichols Sr. The vehicle drifted to the right side of the road and collided with several large trees, ripping apart the vehicle and ejecting the driver.
There were no passengers in the vehicle. A motorist coming off Boynton Road reported the accident at 8:28 a.m.
Friends remembered Bopp as kind, caring and generous.
“He did a lot for people around the world — our smaller world and the larger world,” said Peter Beane of Farmington.
Bopp returned from his work with Doctors Without Borders last spring and began working as a family practitioner at Mt. Abram Regional Health Center in Kingfield, and one day per week at the Madison Area Health Center.
“He was a pillar of doing the right thing for the patient,” said Tracy Harty, senior program director at the Healthy Community Coalition. “He was a close friend, confidante and role model. He was a kind and gentle man.”
Bopp, an emergency room doctor at Franklin Memorial Hospital in the 1980s, was one of the founding organizers of the Healthy Community Coalition, which was launched in 1990. Harty served as its first executive director.
His work with Doctors Without Borders led him into a variety of situations — some unstable and dangerous — but he always did what he believed was right, she said.
Bopp was a member of an informal chess club, along with Beane and Michael Blanchet.
Both spoke of a man who faced dangerous situations and local warlords opposed to his vaccination work.
He stood up and confronted them, even with a gun pointed at him, Beane said.
Bopp shared stories of his exploits and his fight against Ebola in developing countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone with members of the chess club, Blanchet said.
Friends believe he was on his way to work in Kingfield on Tuesday morning.
According to a National Public Radio report from October 2014, Bopp had recently returned from the Liberian capital of Monrovia, where he set up a treatment program for malaria with Doctors Without Borders.
He told NPR that he missed the level of devotion and motivation he’d found with Doctors Without Borders:
“The main thing that’s different about (Doctors Without Borders) from the point of view of someone like me who goes out and works in the field is that when there’s an emergency, other organizations say, ‘Whoa, this is an emergency. We’re gonna be there. As soon as we get funding.’ And (Doctors Without Borders) has the funding,” he says. “We start right away.”
abryant@sunmediagroup.net
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