Driver found dead behind wheel but crash may not have killed him, SC coroner says
A South Carolina man died at the scene of a recent crash, but the wreck might not have been what killed him, according to the Aiken County Coroner’s Office.
Charles Cooper, a 64-year-old Aiken resident, is the man who died at the scene of a Tuesday crash that Coroner Darryl Ables called an accident.
The single-vehicle collision happened at about 2:20 p.m., the coroner’s office said Wednesday in a news release.
Cooper was driving a 1998 Dodge Ram pickup truck south on Columbia Highway, the coroner’s office said. Near the intersection with Beaverdam Road, a witness said that Cooper suffered a medical event, according to the release.
The pickup ran off the right side of Columbia Highway and crashed into a utility pole then flipped over, the coroner’s office said.
There were two passengers in the pickup, and one was taken to an area hospital with what the coroner’s office called non-life-threatening injuries. Further information on that passenger’s condition was not available.
No other injuries were reported.
Cooper’s cause of death is under investigation, according to the coroner’s office.
There was no word if anyone involved in the wreck was wearing a seatbelt, but the crash continues to be investigated by the coroner’s office and the South Carolina Highway Patrol.
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