15-year-old killed when truck he was driving crashed, SC coroner says
A teenager was killed Monday when the pickup truck he was driving crashed into a tree, South Carolina officials said.
Vance Kanter Schmidt, a 15-year-old Belton resident, died in what Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore called an accident.
The single-vehicle collision happened at about 12:45 p.m. in Anderson County, said Master Trooper Mitchell Ridgeway of the South Carolina Highway Patrol.
The teen was driving a 1997 Dodge Ram west on West Road, according to the coroner’s office. Near the intersection with Cherokee Road the pickup ran off the right side of West Road before overcorrecting and swerving back across the road and off the left side, where it crashed into a tree, Ridgeway said.
Schmidt suffered multiple traumatic injuries and died at the scene, according to the coroner’s office.
No other injuries were reported.
There was no word if Schmidt was wearing a seat belt.
Information about what caused the pickup to originally veer off the road was not available, but the wreck continues to be investigated by the Highway Patrol and coroner’s office.
Through Sunday, 316 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2025, according to the state Department of Public Safety. Last year, at least 948 people died in crashes in South Carolina, DPS reported.
At least 11 people have died in Anderson County crashes in 2025, according to DPS data. There were 44 deaths in the county in 2024, DPS reported.
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