A tragic incident occurred in Johnston County when a teenage driver perished after a high-speed chase with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol ended in a collision with a tree. The incident took place on a stretch of Interstate 40 late last Friday night, according to reports from CBS17. State Troopers identified the driver as 16-year-old Cohen Josef Quigley from Clayton, who was clocked at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour in a 70 mph zone.
The pursuit began when a trooper attempted to pull over Quigley's white Chrysler 300 sedan, however, Quigley failed to comply and instead, accelerated down the interstate. The chase continued onto US-301 North and subsequently onto Baker Street in the town of Four Oaks, where law enforcement officers lost sight of the vehicle shortly after. The damaged car was located on Hockaday Road by the troopers after several minutes, as reported by ABC11.
The high-speed chase came to a dramatic halt when the sedan crossed the center line and collided with a tree, resulting in the driver's instantaneous death. Quigley was found unbelted at the scene of the crash. A juvenile passenger in the car sustained minor injuries and was treated accordingly, as mentioned in coverage by WRAL. The unnamed survivor of the crash shared the terrifying ordeal, expressing initial shock and later profound distress. "And then he just kept saying like I can't I can't I can't because I just gotta another ticket he just panicked and Literally, he just started speeding up and going, and as soon as he started speeding up to as fast as the car could go, I knew he wasn't joking," the survivor told WRAL.
The disheartened passenger offered words of warning to young drivers: "Don't panic when you're 16 years old don't panic because the worst thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna get a ticket and then get grounded it's not worth losing your life." The response to the crash involved NCSHP troopers, Four Oaks fire crews, and Johnston County EMS, all of whom arrived on the scene to address the repercussions of the high-speed pursuit that came to such a sudden and somber end.
