UPDATED:
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Early indications show that speed played a role in a deadly one-car crash Sunday that sent an SUV airborne on Weaver Pike.
Crash investigators spent more than three hours at the scene following the death of a young woman, one of the passengers in the SUV, who was ejected from the vehicle during the crash.
At least three others in the car were injured and sent to the Bristol Regional Medical Center emergency room.
Bristol Tennessee Police received the call at 2:37 p.m. Sunday, from a curvy stretch of Weaver Pike, near Highway 394. The caller said an SUV carrying five young people had crashed along a curve in the roadway.
Tennessee Highway Patrolman Rocky Johnson said the driver lost control, overcorrected and tried to regain control of his vehicle several times. The SUV went airborne, flipped two-and-a-half times, and came to a stop in the opposite embankment, he said.
“Speed appears to be a factor,” Johnson said. “Several passengers were not wearing their seat belts.”
The crash was one of four fatal car wrecks in the Tri-Cities area this weekend:
Corrina Steinmann, 42, of Kingsport, Tenn., died Friday when the car she was riding in slid off Interstate 81 and into a tree outside Morristown.
Chad Winebarger, 36, of Johnson City, Tenn., died Saturday when his Jeep rolled over a guardrail in Elizabethton.
James Shaffer, 78, of Hampton, died Saturday of injuries sustained during a crash on Highway 19-E in Carter County, Tenn.
On Sunday afternoon at the Weaver Pike crash, emergency personnel arriving at the scene sent the driver of the SUV and two passengers to the emergency room at the Bristol Regional Medical Center. A third passenger stayed behind to help investigators reconstruct the crash.
The fourth passenger was the young woman who died. Johnson said she was ejected from the car during the crash and died at the scene.
Several of the occupants of the SUV were under the age of 18, officers said. Police declined Sunday to identify any of the people who were in the vehicle.
The crash and the investigation closed a section of Weaver Pike for three hours Sunday. Police set up one roadblock at Old Jonesboro Road and a second at the Weaver Pike interchange. The only drivers permitted to cross were the Sullivan County coroners and a wrecker to tow the SUV away.
Johnson said the number of recent crashes isn’t necessarily surprising.
“It all just kind of comes in spurts,” he said. But the spring-like weather might have more people out driving.
“I think a lot of it is driver distraction, just depends on what they’re doing in the vehicle,” Johnson said of those involved in car crashes. “Whether they’re talking on the phone, changing the radio station, talking to other passengers.”
Click the play icon above to watch a video version of this report.
gjackson@11connects.com | (423) 434-4504
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