Six Georgia high school students were reportedly hospitalized – including two with serious injuries – after a high-speed rollover crash on a winding local road notorious for fatal wrecks.
The single-car crash unfolded Thursday morning when a teen boy driving a 2021 Honda Accord went off Vaughn Road in Newman, about 40 miles southwest of Atlanta, while tearing around a curve, according to the Georgia State Patrol, multiple outlets reported.
The car then smashed into a utility pole before slamming into a large tree.
“All of a sudden I heard a bang and then my electricity went out and so I was like, ‘God, something happened,’” a local resident told Atlanta News First of the late-morning crash.
“I could hear all the kids in the car and they were trying to get themselves out and I just knew something was bad.”
The Northgate High School students were rushed to various hospitals, with two teenage girls airlifted to nearby medical centers in serious condition.
Footage from local reports showed tire tracks stretching along the roadside near the crash site, with the front of the black sedan completely obliterated and wrecked beyond recognition.
“A lot of people, I watch them come around the curve, it looks like they’re coming around on two wheels,” said Debbie Canup, who has lived on the problematic 25 mph road for 30 years and spent much of that time pushing for stop signs and speed bumps, the outlet reported.
“We get what I call eye-candy, which is a sign that says no thru traffic, a sign that says speed limit strictly enforced, but it’s not.”
The school district sent a letter to parents about the crash, offering thoughts and prayers to the victims’ families and providing counseling service to students in need, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.
However, concerned parents questioned why the students weren’t in school when the accident occurred.
“At that time of day, they should have been at school,” Northgate parent Tarrell Pledger told Atlanta News.
“So I’m just curious as to the details and how it affects the other kids as far as how they fear or feel moving forward because it’s real.”
The grim scene, marked by multiple memorials, has a chilling history of deadly wrecks.
One teen died and three others were injured in a 2016 crash, with another teen also killed in a single-vehicle wreck in 2023, according to the Newnan Times-Herald.
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