BARTOW COUNTY, Ga. — A 17-year-old girl ran a stop sign on Sunday and caused a crash that killed one of her passengers, police said.
Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes talked with a witness to the crash who stopped and tried to save the six people involved.
Maria Reveral and her boyfriend, Keenan Riley, were driving down Georgia 20 around 9:30 p.m. Sunday. They told Fernandes that they had children in their back seat.
“That could have been us. We were like right there. We were inches away from getting hit,” Reveral said.
Riley, who was driving, said he saw a silver car moving fast and he knew the female driver wouldn't have time to stop for the stop sign at the Burnt Hickory Road crossing.
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“By the time she got to that stop sign, I hit my brakes and the person next to me, they hit them,” Riley said.
Police said Diana Coker, 17, was driving the car. They said she ran the stop sign and hit a silver SUV.
Riley told Fernandes that he turned around to help.
“I told her, I said, ‘I got to stop and turn around.’ I said, ‘Ain’t nobody else out here on this road. I got to see what I can do,’” Riley said.
He said he pulled the couple out of the SUV and, because they weren't injured too badly, he moved on and tried to help the four people in the car.
“Everybody in the car looked young,” Riley told Fernandes.
He said Coker was unconscious with a major head injury and her passenger was also unconscious.
The only passenger who could talk was another young man in the back seat, Riley said. The fourth passenger behind the driver was dead.
“I was just trying to keep everybody alive and wait on someone else to get there to help me because I couldn't open no doors or anything,” Riley said.
Charges are pending in the crash.