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Man dies after crashing Harley-Davidson into tree near Midlands road, officials say

One man was killed Saturday in a motorcycle crash on a Midlands road, South Carolina Highway Patrol said.

Brandon Quinn Trujillo died at the scene, Kershaw County Coroner David West said Sunday.

The single-vehicle collision happened at about 4:20 p.m. on Timrod Road, according to Sgt. Sonny Collins of Highway Patrol. That’s in the Bethune area, near U.S. 1.

The 51-year-old Bethune-area resident was riding a 2012 Harley-Davidson west on Timrod road when the motorcycle ran off the left side of the road and smashed into a tree, Collins said.

Trujillo was not wearing a helmet, West said.

He had gone to town to pick something up and was headed back home when the crash occurred, West told The State.

No other injuries were reported by Highway Patrol.

Information on what caused the motorcycle to run off the road was not available, but the wreck remains under investigation by Highway Patrol.

This is the second fatal collision in the past four days in Kershaw County.

Jennifer Moseley, a 33-year-old Cassatt-area resident, died Wednesday when the SUV she was driving on U.S. 521 was in a head-on crash with a tractor trailer.

Moseley was on her way to work at the Haile Gold Mine when she was ejected from her Toyota 4Runner and killed, West told The State. Like Moseley, Trujillo was also an employee at the gold mine, according to West.

The Haile Gold Mine is a nearly 200-year-old mining site that was reopened in 2017 by the Australian OceanaGold Corporation. It’s about 6 miles from the town of Kershaw in southern Lancaster County.

Through Friday afternoon, 29 motorcycle riders were among the 262 people that have been killed on South Carolina roads this year, according to the Department of Public Safety. In those collisions 14 crash victims were not wearing a helmet, DPS reported.

This was at least the sixth person killed in an Kershaw County crash this year, and the first motorcycle rider, DPS data shows.

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This story was originally published April 18, 2021 at 11:34 AM.

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Noah Feit
The State
Noah Feit is a Real Time reporter with The State focused on breaking news, public safety and trending news. The award-winning journalist has worked for multiple newspapers since starting his career in 1999. Support my work with a digital subscription
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