Wrong-way driver and another killed in head-on crash identified, Lexington Co. coroner says
Two people are dead after a driver headed the wrong way on a major Lexington County highway crashed into another vehicle Monday morning, South Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper Lance Corporal David Jones said.
The fatal collision occurred just before 7:30 a.m. on Interstate 26, where it converges with Interstate 77, according to a news release from Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher.
A driver, identified as John L. McCravy by Fisher in the news release, was going south in the northbound lane of I-26 when the 79-year-old Columbia man crashed into another car head-on, Jones said.
Fisher identified Ann-Marie S. Vargas-Kincade as the driver of the other vehicle, saying the 42-year-old West Columbia woman was pronounced dead at the scene in the news release.
McCravy was taken “to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later,” according to Fisher’s news release.
Both drivers were wearing seat belts, Fisher reported in the news release. Jones said there were no passengers in either vehicle.
The I-77 exit ramp coming from the northbound lanes of I-26 East was blocked at about 8 a.m., according to a tweet from Jones.
The lanes feeding from I-26 West were also slow moving, according to the tweet.
The crash involved multiple vehicles, according to a tweet from the Cayce Department of Public Safety.
The area was cleared before 10 a.m., according to a tweet from Jones.
The S.C. Highway Patrol is investigating the deadly crash.
This story was originally published December 17, 2018 at 8:53 AM.
