UPDATE: Car slams into 18-wheeler and catches fire in Macon, killing Warner Robins men
Two Houston County men were killed early Thursday in a fiery crash when the car they were in careened through a grass median at the intersection of Houston Road, Broadway and Pio Nono Avenue in south Macon and slammed into a tractor-trailer truck.
The victims, the driver, Kenneth David Lawrence, 61, and passenger Michael Wayne Vandergriff, 56, both of Warner Robins, died at the scene, Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones said.
The crash happened about 12:30 a.m. as the car the men were in was headed south on Broadway approaching the Seven Bridges stretch of Ga. 247.
Bibb sheriff’s officials said the car shot through a median and onto adjoining Houston Road where it smashed into a Freightliner 18-wheeler parked at a stoplight.
The car burst into flames and the men “were unable to get out,” officials said in a statement.
The driver of the truck was not seriously hurt, though the driver of another car, which the truck was knocked into, was taken to a hospital and said to be in stable condition.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 8:49 AM.