News

Jul 19, 2023

South Carolina: Deadly highway crash reported in Cherokee County

The latest breaking updates, delivered straight to your email inbox. Dennis

The latest breaking updates, delivered straight to your email inbox.

Dennis Fowler with the Cherokee County Coroner's Office has identified two people who were killed in two separate crashes minutes apart on Thursday.

Video above: Previous coverage

Fowler says the crashes happened on I-85 near Blacksburg.

According to Fowler, the first crash happened around 4:35 p.m. in the southbound lanes at mile marker 106.

A 56-year-old woman from Sullivans Island, was driving a 2016 Range Rover when she was headed south on I-85, drove to the left, striking a retainer wall, and back right into the path of a tractor-trailer rig, according to Fowler.

Fowler says the woman hit the rig on the passenger side, trapping both herself and the front seat passenger of the vehicle inside.

According to Fowler, the woman was pronounced dead at the scene while the passenger was taken to Spartanburg Medical Center for treatment.

There is no word on the condition of the front passenger at this time.

The second crash happened at 4:40 p.m. when another tractor-trailer crashed into a box-type truck that was stopped due to the first crash, Fowler says.

According to Fowler, the truck was dragged underneath the tractor-trailer for several hundred feet before the driver realized it was there.

Fowler says that the driver of the box truck Timothy Antonio McNeil, 25, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was pronounced dead at the scene and the passenger in the box truck was taken to Spartanburg Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.

An autopsy is scheduled for both victims at a later time, according to Fowler.

The South Carolina Highway Patrol suggests anyone planning to take I-85 southbound to seek an alternate route and detours are being established.