2/3/06.
Two Florida men and a Georgia truck driver died in a chain-reaction crash that has shut down southbound lanes of Interstate 95 near Hardeeville, SC, near the Georgia state line. The crash about 1:25 Friday morning happened as traffic was stopped because of another incident farther up I-95. A tractor trailer hauling steel rear-ended a stopped landscaping van. That mpact caused a chain reaction with four additional tractor trailers and a smaller landscaping van.
An 18-wheeler driven by 52-year-old Tommy Lenoir of Valdosta, Ga., crashed into a van driven by Delbert Eugene Reitzel Jr. of South Daytona, Fla. Both men were killed in the crash. Reitzel’s nephew, Brett Cole Reitzel of Largo, Fla., also was killed. Another passenger in the van and the drivers of two other 18-wheelers were injured in the crash that involved six vehicles.
Time and time again we see crashes in the wee hours of the morning in which tractor trailer drivers, often weary and on cruise control, fail to see slower vehicles ahead of them on the Interstate, and just run right over them. Last week, I took the deposition of a truck driver in Ohio who wound up admitting that his driver log was falsified and he had been driving 20 of the 24 hours prior to the 3 AM crash. The next day a truck driver in Florida admitted that no log could be found in his truck after a 5:30 AM crash, and he could not recall whether he had taken a rest break between Wisconsin and south Georgia.

The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks).