Thursday March 28th, 2024 2:14PM

Officials release details of fatal wreck on I-85 in Banks County

Two men were struck by a vehicle and one of them died while beautifying Interstate 85 north of Banks Crossing (Exit 149) Wednesday morning.

The wreck, dispatched to Banks County emergency personnel at 7:30 a.m., occurred in the southbound lanes and involved a 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 that was pulling a trailer. That truck was driven by 45-year-old Jerry Thomas of Vale, N.C., according to Sgt. Auston Allen of Georgia State Patrol Post 6 in Gainesville.

The first pedestrian, Fransico Cucul, 23, an undocumented immigrant with no permanent address, suffered minor injuries, Allen said.

“He was transported to Northridge Medical Center in the Banks Crossing area, but is expected to be ok,” Allen told AccessWDUN. “There was nothing serious injured on him.”

The second pedestrian, 48-year-old Gregorio Alfonso, an undocumented immigrant with no permanent address, died at the scene from his injuries, according to Allen.

The men were employed by Lovin Contracting Co. of North Carolina.

“They were picking up trash and roadway debris from the side of I-85 and, unfortunately, the Dodge pickup was traveling south on 85 in the left lane,” Allen said. “The driver failed to maintain his lane of travel and traveled onto the east shoulder of the roadway. Vehicle 1 struck both pedestrians with the front of the vehicle.”

Thomas is charged with failure to maintain lane, driving with a suspended driver’s license, and second-degree vehicular homicide, Allen said.

“There was no suspicion of alcohol or drugs in the crash,” Allen said.

Allen said he doesn’t have information about whether Wednesday morning’s fatal wreck was a consequence of distracted driving.

“Unfortunately, in today’s times, the majority of crashes that are out here that are written up on a crash report with things such as failure to obey a traffic control device, failure to maintain lane, following too closely, those are definitely contributing factors, but the root cause of those most of the time is some type of distracted driving, whether it be texting, the cell phones, looking at children in the back — things of that nature,” Allen said. “Sometimes, unless the person actually says that, you may not know the root cause of that. And I don’t know that any of that was the root cause in this accident, but it is a possibility.”

  • Associated Categories: Homepage, Local/State News
  • Associated Tags: fatal wreck, traffic accident, GSP, Banks County, wreck, Georgia State Patrol, I-85, Banks Crossing, Interstate 85, Sgt. Auston Allen
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