Weather a factor in U.S. 64 wreck

Local News

March 30, 2009

T. J. ROYAL

Three people escaped serious injury on U.S. 64 Friday after a weather-related accident occurred near Hart's Mill Run Road.

N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper Timothy Pope said that at around 2 p.m., Lynette Sutton Pate, 20, of Greenville was driving in the right lane on U.S. 64, heading east, when she lost control of her 2006 Nissan Sentra and wrecked into a guard-rail next to the left lane. Her car came to rest on the bridge above Hart's Mill Run Road.

After seeing her wreck, Pope said that Haywood Lee Reddick, 66, of Belhaven stopped his tractor-trailer in the left lane to check on her. His tractor-trailer did not make any contact with her car in the incident, Pope said.

Shortly after her accident, Pope said that another tractor-trailer driven by Chester Lee Goodman, 49, of Corapeake, was driving around 35 mph in the right lane when his tractor-trailer collided with Pate's car while she was still inside.

Goodman's tractor trailer then overturned in the left lane onto its driver's side, spilling around four tons of gravel onto the median east of the Hart's Mill Run Road bridge.

Pope reported that no one was taken to the hospital in the incident, that the only reported injury was a cut to the left side of Goodman's head.

No charges were filed in the accident. The trooper said that Pate appeared to be driving a "safe speed for the weather conditions" out on U.S. 64, when there was a heavy downpour of rain in the area.

The Edgecombe County Rescue Squad, Heartsease Volunteer Fire Department, Edgecombe County Sheriff's deputies, Edgecombe County Fire Marshal Butch Beach and N.C. Department of Transportation all responded to the accident.