Men killed in crash where car went up in flames identified by Richland County coroner
Two people were killed in an early-morning crash Sunday when a car ran off a Richland County road and hit a tree before it went up in flames, the South Carolina Highway Patrol said.
Jeremy Pitts, a 42-year-old Irmo resident, and Jonathan M. Rosa, a 46-year-old from Mount Pleasant, died in the accident, Richland County Coroner Naida Rutherford said Tuesday.
Information about which man was the driver and which was the passenger was not available.
The single-vehicle collision happened at 2:10 a.m., according to Cpl. David Jones.
A 2021 Tesla was driving west on Salem Church Road when it ran off the left side of the road, Jones said. That’s in the Irmo area, near Lake Murray and not far from Interstate 26.
The vehicle caught fire after crashing into a tree. Both the driver and a front-seat passenger died at the scene, according to Jones.
No other injuries were reported.
There was no word if either man wore a seat belt.
Information about what caused the Tesla to veer off the road was not available, but the Highway Patrol is investigating the collision.
This was the first of multiple deadly crashes Sunday in the Midlands.
Later in the morning, at about 10 a.m., a Polaris side-by-side ATV was driving south in the median of U.S. 301 in Orangeburg County when it overturned into a creek and the driver died, according to the Highway Patrol.
That night at about 10:30 p.m., a motorcycle rider died after crashing into a deer on S.C. 6 in Lexington County, the Highway Patrol said.
And at about 11:30 p.m., two people died in a separate Lexington County crash near the intersection of Augusta Road and 12th Street that involved a tractor trailer truck and an SUV, according to the West Columbia Police Department.
Through Sunday, 730 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2022, according to the state Department of Public Safety. Last year, 1,194 people died in crashes in South Carolina, DPS reported.
At least 46 people have been killed in Richland County crashes in 2022, according to DPS. There were 73 deaths there last year, DPS data show.
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This story was originally published September 18, 2022 at 11:30 AM.
