Oak Ridge Today

Miraculous: Woman survives when trailer, small loader crash into car

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Rescuers said it was a miracle that a woman survived when a trailer carrying a small loader crashed into her Toyota Camry on Emory Valley Road on Friday evening, Sept. 2, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 9:30 p.m.

Rescuers said it was a miracle that a woman survived when a trailer carrying a small loader crashed into her Toyota Camry on Emory Valley Road on Friday evening.

It took the Oak Ridge Fire Department about 55 minutes to remove the woman, who was pinned inside the car. She was flown by a Lifestar medical helicopter to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville.

The woman, who was not identified, was talking to rescuers, authorities said. Her condition wasn’t clear, but she was reported to be conscious and alert.

“That’s probably the worst extrication I’ve seen where the person was still alive,” Oak Ridge Fire Chief Darryl Kerley said. “There was an angel with her today.” [Read more…]

Vehicular homicide, other charges sent to grand jury in Clinton Highway crash

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Scott Gray, who has been charged with vehicular homicide, among other counts, is pictured above in Anderson County General Sessions Court, Division I, in Clinton on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

CLINTON—Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers testified Thursday that a driver charged with vehicular homicide smelled of alcohol and said he had been drinking and had taken two anti-anxiety pills before a two-vehicle crash on Clinton Highway in April that resulted in the death of a 23-year-old Heiskell woman.

There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey found between the driver’s seat and the rocker panel of the 1993 Eagle four-door sedan, according to testimony by a crash witness and THP Trooper Isaiah Lloyd, the lead trooper in the investigation. Lloyd testified that he saw a glass marijuana pipe with residue in the center console of the car, a marijuana joint inside a prescription bottle, and at least six beer cans on the passenger floorboard of the car, although it wasn’t clear if the cans were empty or full.

The THP said Scott Gray, 26, of Knoxville, was driving north on Clinton Highway in the Eagle sedan near Mehaffey Road on Thursday evening, April 28, when he turned into the path of a southbound 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicle driven by Kimberly Williamson, 32, of Knoxville. The SUV driven by Williamson hit the car driven by Gray.

The passenger side of the Eagle had significant damage, and passenger Jessica Miner Taylor, 23, of Heiskell, was trapped and critically injured. After she was extricated, she was flown by a Lifestar medical helicopter to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, authorities said. She was immediately taken into the operating room because her bladder was torn from the crash, Lloyd said in arrest warrants filed in May.

Gray was taken by ambulance to UT Medical Center the day of the crash. Williamson had minor injuries, and she was taken in a personal vehicle to Tennova North, where she was treated and released, authorities said earlier.

Miner died from her injuries about a week after the crash, on Friday, May 6, according to her obituary. [Read more…]

Motorcyclist, 21, flown to UT hospital after crash with Electric Department truck

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The Oak Ridge Police Department investigates a crash between a motorcycle and a city electric truck at the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Illinois Avenue on Sunday morning, Aug. 14, 2016. The electric truck is in the background at right. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 9:30 p.m.

A 21-year-old motorcyclist was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville after crashing into an Oak Ridge Electric Department utility truck at the intersection of Illinois Avenue and Oak Ridge Turnpike on Sunday morning, authorities said.

The motorcyclist, identified as Brandon W. Wyrick of Clinton, was going north on a 1999 Yamaha V-Star on Illinois Avenue when he did not stop at a red light at Oak Ridge Turnpike, the Tennessee Highway Patrol said in a preliminary report.

The Electric Department’s 2011 Freightliner was going south on Oak Ridge Turnpike and was legally going through the intersection at Illinois Avenue when Wyrick failed to stop, the THP said. The motorcycle hit the right front side of the utility truck.

Wyrick was treated at the crash site and taken to Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge by an Anderson County EMS ambulance. He was then flown to UT Medical Center by a Lifestar helicopter, the Oak Ridge Police Department said in a press release.

Wyrick’s condition was reported to be critical at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, according to UT Medical Center. [Read more…]

Woman arrested for role in alleged armed robbery that injured two

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Larissa Cate Little

Larissa Cate Little

A Knoxville woman has been charged with especially aggravated robbery for her role in an alleged armed robbery of cash and prescription medications on Jonathan Lane in May that sent two people to the hospital with serious injuries or broken bones that required medical treatment and hospital stays, authorities said.

Larissa Cate Little, 27, of Dude Lane in Knoxville, was arrested Thursday by the Oak Ridge Police Department. She remained jailed in the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton early Friday afternoon. Her bond on the especially aggravated robbery charge has been set at $100,000.

An arrest warrant said Little allegedly brought two male defendants who are not identified in the warrant to a Jonathan Lane home with the intent to commit an armed robbery at about 3:15 p.m. May 21. Little knew that the two Jonathan Lane victims, a male and female, would open the door for her because they knew her, said the warrant, filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge.

Little got the victims to open the door, then her two male co-defendants entered the home, striking the male victim in the face with what he believed to be a firearm, ORPD Detective William Weaver said. [Read more…]

One dead after two-county chase ends in crash; wanted man charged with homicide

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Ralpheal Cameron Coffey

Ralpheal Cameron Coffey in 2014 (Source: Anderson County Sheriff’s Department)

One man is dead following the crash that occurred Wednesday afternoon on Central Avenue Pike in north Knox County after a two-county police chase, and a man wanted in both Anderson and Knox counties has been charged with vehicular homicide, authorities said.

According to the initial investigation, 26-year-old Ralpheal Cameron Coffey was fleeing from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department in a 2007 maroon Chevy Impala when he almost struck an officer with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office in his cruiser around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday on Heiskell Road, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office said. The officer turned the cruiser around to pursue Coffey, but found the Impala had crashed into a 2007 white Ford F150 pickup truck on Central Avenue Pike at Callahan Drive.

Coffey and his passenger, Tommie Troupe, 44, as well as the driver of the Ford, Kevin Bradley, 27, and his passenger, Eric Kennedy, 26, were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville with incapacitating injuries. Bradley was pronounced dead at the hospital. [Read more…]

Warrants: Narcotic pain-reliever suspected in fatal crash

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The driver charged with vehicular homicide in a fatal three-vehicle crash in Oak Ridge on Friday, May 6, 2016, is suspected of using a narcotic pain-reliever, authorities said. The crash at the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Jefferson Avenue killed Christy Duncan, a 37-year-old Harriman mother who was an employee of Roane County Schools and attended church in Oak Ridge. A Mother’s Day memorial was set up near the crash site on Sunday, May 8, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The driver charged with vehicular homicide in a fatal three-vehicle crash in Oak Ridge on May 6 is suspected of using a narcotic pain-reliever, authorities said.

Vicki G. Gilmore, 61, of Oak Ridge, had constricted pupils and droopy eyelids after the Friday night crash, Oak Ridge Police Department Officer Derek A. Burchfield wrote in affidavits filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge.

The crash was reported at about 9:47 p.m. Friday, May 6, at the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Jefferson Avenue.

All witness statements said Gilmore was driving fast in the westbound lanes of Oak Ridge Turnpike, Burchfield said. A blue Nissan Altima was on the inside lane at the red light. Inside that car were Christy Duncan, 37, of Harriman, and her four-year-old daughter Janna.

In the outside lane was a silver Lexus occupied by Jason Watson, according to the affidavits, which are attached to arrest warrants.

“All statements say Gilmore failed to slow down or even hit the brakes, crashing into the rear of Duncan’s vehicle before sliding sideways into Watson’s vehicle,” the affidavits said. [Read more…]

Vehicular homicide charge added to DUI charge after passenger dies

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Scott Allen Gray

Scott Allen Gray

 

A Knoxville man who admitted to drinking for two days straight and taking two Klonopins has now been charged with vehicular homicide, in addition to driving under the influence, after his 23-year-old passenger, Jessica Miner Taylor, of Heiskell, died about one week after a two-vehicle crash on Clinton Highway in Anderson County in April, authorities said.

Scott Allen Gray, 26, was initially charged with vehicular assault and DUI (second offense) after the two-vehicle crash injured three people at the intersection of Clinton Highway and Mehaffey Road on Thursday, April 28.

The vehicular homicide charge was added after Jessica Miner Taylor, who had been trapped in the car, died this month.

The THP said Gray was driving north on Clinton Highway in a 1993 Eagle Vision sedan on April 28 when he turned into the path of a southbound 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicle driven by Kimberly Williamson, 32, of Knoxville.

The SUV driven by Williamson hit the car driven by Gray. [Read more…]

WYSH: Clinton crash injures motorcyclist

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Information from WYSH Radio, an Oak Ridge Today news partner

A car-motorcycle crash in south Clinton late Monday morning sent one man to the hospital by Lifestar medical helicopter, authorities said.

The crash occurred just before 11 a.m. Monday on Clinch Avenue in front of the Icon Market.

The Clinton Police Department said that 54-year-old John Aulton of Clinton had been headed north on Clinch Avenue on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle when a southbound Cadillac sedan driven by 75-year-old Billy Ashe of Clinton tried to turn left into the market. But his car ended up in the path of Aulton’s motorcycle, authorities said, and even though Aulton reportedly locked his brakes, he struck the right front side of the Cadillac and was thrown off the bike. [Read more…]

One flown to UT after ATV-motorcycle crash on Hillvale Road

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Note: This story was updated at 4:35 p.m.

A 23-year-old man was flown to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries after a motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle crashed on Hillvale Road in Anderson County on Monday afternoon, authorities said.

At the time of the crash, Caleb Tyler Burrell, 23, of Clinton, was traveling south on Hillvale Road on a 2014 Yamaha YFR motorcycle behind a 2013 Ranger side-by-side ATV driven by Wesley Edward Tilley, 38, of Andersonville, the Tennessee Highway Patrol said.

Tilley was trying to make a left turn off Hillvale Road onto a private drive when Burrell tried to pass the ATV, the THP said.

The motorcycle driven by Burrell hit the ATV driven by Tilley at an angle, a preliminary report said. [Read more…]

Updated: Gunshot victim, 19, in stable condition at UT Medical Center

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A 19-year-old Oak Ridge man was dropped off at Methodist Medical Center with a gunshot wound Friday night, Feb. 26, 2016, and flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville by a UT Lifestar medical helicopter, authorities said. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 3:25 p.m. Feb. 29.

The 19-year-old Oak Ridge man flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center with a gunshot wound on Friday night is in stable condition, the hospital said Monday afternoon.

Elijah Malik McDowell was driven to Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge around 8:20 p.m. Friday because of injuries to his thigh, groin, and abdomen, the Oak Ridge Police Department said. He was dropped off at the hospital by a friend who left before police arrived, authorities said.

He was airlifted to the UT Medical Center in Knoxville about an hour later by a UT Lifestar helicopter, the ORPD said. [Read more…]

Knoxville woman dies, Andersonville women injured in crash on Norris Freeway

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A Knoxville woman died and two Andersonville women were injured in a Tuesday morning crash on Norris Freeway at Pedigo Road in north Knox County, authorities said.

The woman who died has been identified as Nellie Gunter, 70, of Knoxville, according to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.

The KCSO said Gunter was driving north on Norris Freeway in a Nissan Versa when she lost control of her car due to the wet road and hit a Buick LeSabre, which was going south. Gunter died at the scene, authorities said.

The Buick was driven by Alice Overdyk, 67, of Andersonville. She and her passenger, Susan Moses, 58, also of Andersonville, were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville by Rural Metro. [Read more…]

Man charged with reckless aggravated assault after crash seriously injures two, causes SUV to roll

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Matthew R. Gibson

Matthew R. Gibson

Note: This story was updated at 2:35 p.m. Jan. 25.

A 72-year-old Oak Ridge man has been charged with reckless aggravated assault after he allegedly drove at high speed in a pickup truck on a residential street, ignored a stop sign, and collided with a sport utility vehicle, causing it to roll and seriously injuring two people inside, authorities said.

Matthew R. Gibson, of South Purdue Avenue, was also cited for not having his driver’s license and for a stop sign violation.

His bond on the reckless aggravated assault charge was set at $20,000, and he remained jailed in the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton on Sunday morning.

The two-vehicle crash was reported at about 2:45 p.m. Saturday, January 16, at the intersection of Manhattan and North Purdue avenues in the Woodland neighborhood, behind Food City. [Read more…]