Fatal Tractor Trailer Crash in Spartanburg County, South Carolina
Thirty-seven-year-old Jessica Lyn Wright was killed Monday when her 2009 Ford car was involved in a collision with a tractor trailer and a South Carolina Department of Transportation dump truck. The accident happened on the southbound side of Interstate 85, between the Brockman-McClimon Road and Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport exits, near Greer, South Carolina. The collision, which happened at about 9:50 AM, is still under investigation. Ms. Wright was pronounced dead upon her arrival at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center at 10:53 AM. She had been partially ejected from her vehicle, and was airlifted to the hospital from the scene. The tractor trailer driver and the dump truck driver were both uninjured. At the time of the accident, Sixty-six-year-old Charles Ray Smith, of Casar, North Carolina, was driving the tractor trailer, and Twenty-two-year-old James Michael Pridemore, of nearby Inman, South Carolina, was driving the dump truck.
This was the third wreck of the morning along that stretch of I-85, as traffic was backed up throughout the morning hours. One of the earlier wrecks also involved tractor trailers. In that accident, a tractor trailer driver did not slow down in time to avoid traffic ahead of it, ran into a Honda Civic automobile, and then sideswiped another 18-wheeler. The at-fault tractor trailer driver was charged with following too closely.
The cause of the accident which caused the fatality is unknown, and the investigation is still ongoing by the South Carolina Highway Patrol, according to Lance Corporal Bill Rhyne.
