FAISON, NC : 2 dead in I-40 wrong-way crash in Sampson County on Tuesday, 21st February 2023

“You can only go but so fast.”

That’s what North Carolina Highway Patrol First Sgt. J.E. Ftahl told CBS 17 about troopers racing to catch up with a wrong-way driver early Tuesday morning in Sampson County.

The highway patrol received multiple calls from other drivers on Interstate 40 about the wrong-way vehicle for about a 10-mile stretch, Ftahl said. Troopers from Duplin and Sampson counties headed toward the vehicle from opposite directions.

But time and speed weren’t on the troopers’ sides.

Russell Kee, 54, of Grifton, was traveling west in the eastbound lane of the interstate around 12:54 a.m. west of Faison between mile markers 353 and 354 when he struck another vehicle head-on driven by 20-year-old Kerry Gerald of Odenton, Maryland. Both drivers were killed instantaneously, Ftahl told CBS 17.

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