Truck runs off I-20 and driver is ejected from 18-wheeler, South Carolina coroner says
A trucker was killed early Tuesday morning when the tractor trailer he was driving ran off Interstate 20 and crashed into several trees, according to the South Carolina Highway Patrol.
Emmanuel D. Jones — a 28-year-old Montgomery, Alabama resident — died in what Aiken County Coroner Darryl Ables called an accident.
The single-vehicle collision happened at about 2:45 a.m., said Master Trooper Mitchell Ridgeway of the Highway Patrol.
Jones was driving a 2005 Kenworth tractor trailer west on I-20, according to Ridgeway. At the 35 mile marker, near the Wagener area, one of the tires had a blowout and the truck ran off the left side of I-20 — where it hit several trees, Ables said.
Jones was ejected and died at the scene, according to Ables.
There was no word if Jones was wearing a seat belt.
No other injuries were reported in the crash that continues to be investigated by the Highway Patrol and coroner’s office. An autopsy will be conducted in Newberry, Ables said.
Through Sunday, 427 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2024, according to the state Department of Public Safety. Last year, 1,030 people died in crashes in South Carolina, DPS reported.
At least 17 people have died in Aiken County crashes in 2024, according to DPS data. There were 38 deaths reported in the county in 2023, DPS said.
