Eden , NC : 42 - Years old Off-duty EMS worker stops to help crash victims killed by Passing Driver and two people wee injure after hit by motor-vehicle on Wednesday , January 14th 2015

North Carolina Highway Patrol Troopers have charged a driver in the death of an EMS worker who had just gotten off his 12-hour shift and who was killed while trying to help someone in a crash.

Troopers charged 58-year-old, Louis Cornelius of Greensboro with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle in the death of 42-year-old William McKinney Jr.

Officials say McKinney, who was a captain and had been with Rockingham County EMS for 19 years, had just finished a 12-hour shift.

McKinney, who leaves behind a wife and two young children, stopped to help crash victims Wednesday around 7:30 a.m. on Highway 14 southbound, north of Eden.

Troopers say a truck traveling south hit a patch of ice and slid into a ditch on the other side of the road. Troopers then say a Mustang, also traveling south, hit the same patch of ice and ended up in the same ditch, behind the truck. The two vehicles did not hit each other.

Troopers say McKinney Jr was traveling north on NC 14 when he saw the vehicles in the ditch. He pulled off the road into a business driveway, got out of the car, while wearing his safety vest, to check on the victims.

But troopers say, as McKinney talked to the victims, a tractor trailer, traveling south, hit the same patch of ice as the first two vehicles and jack-knifed.

The back of the tractor-trailer hit the Mustang and McKinney. The front hit the guardrail and a third vehicle, which had also been traveling southbound before the trailer flipped over onto the guardrail.

McKinney died as a result of his injuries. The tractor trailer driver has been charged with exceeding a speed safe for the conditions and misdemeanor death by motor vehicle.

The original victims were in their vehicles when the tractor trailer hit. Two people, the Mustang driver and the driver of the third vehicle, were transported to the hospital.

McKinney grew up in Reidsville. According to his friends, he was the youngest of four children, his parents' only boy.

He was a member of Thompsonville Baptist Church and a member of the N.C. Rescue and Emergency Medical Services Council.





source :
Off-duty EMS worker stops to help crash victims, is killed by passing driver, NC officials say