I-40 crash was 5th fatal head-on in area in 3 years
KNOXVILLE, Tenn — The fiery head-on collision that killed two people early Wednesday on Interstate 40 near downtown marks the fifth fatal crash involving a wrong-way driver along the same four-mile stretch since March 2013, police records show.
However, authorities say they want to be cautious and not draw too many comparisons among the cases.
The latest wreck was reported shortly after 1 a.m. ET Wednesday when Anthony Swartz, 21, of Corryton, Tenn., drove west into the eastbound lanes and struck an oncoming tractor-trailer at mile marker 387 just west of the Interstate 275 interchange, according to the Knoxville Police Department.
The crash killed Swartz and truck driver Carroll Trent, 67, of Evington, Va. The impact ignited more than 800 pounds of benzoquinone, a flammable, hazardous material that Trent was hauling from Nashville to Virginia, and destroyed the truck and its tandem trailers.
Wednesday's collision shares several similarities to a rash of four crashes in 2013 — all of which were caused by men in their 20s who were killed when they drove into oncoming interstate traffic. Likewise, each crash was reported between 1 and 3 a.m.
Police said alcohol was a factor in at least two of the previous crashes.
Jose Jesus Guzman-Torres, 26, had a blood-alcohol content of 0.2% when he drove east into the westbound lanes Nov. 10, 2013, striking a Toyota Scion between James White Parkway and I-275, according to records. A second vehicle then struck Guzman-Torres' car. He was declared dead at the scene.
A driver is presumed intoxicated with 0.08%, according to laws in all 50 states.
Scott Hankal, 24, died in a fiery crash March 15, 2013, when his vehicle struck an oncoming tractor-trailer in the westbound lanes, east of Hall of Fame Drive. Hankal later was found to have a blood-alcohol level of 0.342%.
Police suspect alcohol also might have been a factor in the Dec. 21, 2013, fiery crash that killed Bryan Winfree, 27, who struck a tractor-trailer on I-40 eastbound, just west of Alcoa Highway. Investigators were unable to obtain a blood sample from Winfree's body, Knoxville police spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.
Similarly, a blood sample could not be retrieved following the Aug. 7, 2013, crash that killed Rick Staley Jr., 29, when he drove into an oncoming semi-truck along I-40 eastbound near 17th Street.
No obvious signs of alcohol or drug use were found in the wreckage of Swartz's SUV on Wednesday, DeBusk said. He had just graduated in May from Maryville College in Maryville, Tenn.
"We're still trying to determine the events leading up to the crash — where he had been, who he was with," DeBusk said.
Toxicology tests have been requested although it likely will be several weeks or months before the results are available.
The density of interchanges along that stretch of I-40 is another factor common among the crashes because the numerous exits and on-ramps offer more opportunities for an impaired or confused driver to head the wrong way onto the interstate, DeBusk said.
Knox County's emergency call center received a report of Swartz's white SUV heading west onto I-40 eastbound from James White Parkway less than a minute before the crash.
Investigators could not determine where any of the wrong-way drivers at fault in the previous crashes drove onto the interstate, a major east-west corridor that runs 2,555 miles from Wilmington, N.C. to Barstow, Calif.
Police do not believe any of the collisions happened because of problems with the interstate's design or signage, DeBusk said, noting Wednesday's crash was the area's first wrong-way collision in more than two years.
"You would think that if that had been an issue we would have continued to see that as a trend," he said.
That stretch of I-40 actually has seen a reduction in overall crashes since the 2009 completion of an I-40 redesign project, dubbed SmartFix40, that closed a mile of the interstate for 14 months, he said. Authorities also have no indication whether a video game was a contributing factor in the Wednesday crash.
In a Facebook post Wednesday evening, Trent's daughter claimed that Swartz was playing Pokemon Go on his mobile phone while driving.
DeBusk, who said he was inundated with calls the next morning media seeking a response to the daughter's claim, speculated the confusion might have come from a News Sentinel video interview with DeBusk posted online. The video was immediately followed by a separate, unrelated news clip about a driver in Baltimore who struck a parked police cruiser while playing Pokemon.
Follow Hayes Hickman on Twitter: @KNSWatchfulEye