Five killed overnight in head-on crash, South Carolina Highway Patrol says
Five people were killed overnight in a head-on crash, South Carolina Highway Patrol said.
The two-vehicle collision happened at about 2:15 a.m. in a southbound lane of Interstate 385, near mile marker 13, Trooper Joel Hovis said Sunday. That’s about 75 miles northwest of Columbia.
Three people were in a 2020 Hyundai that was heading south on I-385 when the wreck occurred, Hovis said. A 2014 Kia, with two people inside, was heading north in the southbound lane of the highway and smashed into the Hyundai, according to Hovis.
None of the occupants of the Hyundai wore a seat belt, while just the driver of the Kia was properly restrained, Hovis said.
All five people were entrapped in the vehicles and had to be mechanically extracted, according to Hovis.
Four died at the scene while one of the people from the Hyundai was taken to a Prisma Health hospital in Greenville before dying, Hovis said.
The Laurens County Coroner’s Office will publicly identify the people after notifying their families.
No other injuries were reported by Highway Patrol.
Information why the Kia was in the wrong lane was not available, but the crash remains under investigation by Highway Patrol.
Through Friday afternoon, 885 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2020, according to the Department of Public Safety. Of those, 598 of the victims had access to seat belts, but 322 were not wearing them, DPS reported.
There have been at least 23 people killed in Laurens County crashes in 2020, and seat belts were not used in at least 17 of the deaths, DPS data shows.
On Nov. 12, there was a deadly collision in Laurens County in which the person was not wearing a seat belt, according to DPS.
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This story was originally published November 15, 2020 at 9:43 AM with the headline "Five killed overnight in head-on crash, South Carolina Highway Patrol says."
