A 35-year-old nurse from Melbourne was killed in a head-on, wrong-way crash on Interstate 10 in Madison County, just hours after she dropped her eldest daughter off for her freshman year at Florida A&M University. Terri Pollock's family is now mourning her sudden death while her 13-year-old daughter, who was riding in the SUV with her, remains hospitalized with serious injuries.
According to FOX 35 Orlando, the Brevard County family is grieving Pollock's death after she was killed in the wrong-way crash while driving home from moving her daughter, Danaijah Jackson, into her dorm at Florida A&M University. Family members told WCTV that Pollock had just earned her own Bachelor of Science in Nursing in May, sharing a joint graduation ceremony with Jackson, who received her high school diploma and an associate degree the same day before heading to FAMU.
Pollock's younger daughter, 13-year-old Tariji Cone, was inside the SUV during the collision and was rushed to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare in critical condition with multiple broken bones, according to a Flanagan & Bodenheimer blog post detailing the crash. The collision initially left three people critically injured at the scene, the post notes.
How the Crash Unfolded in Heavy Rain
The Florida Highway Patrol reported that the head-on crash happened around 7:10 p.m. during heavy rainfall, when a 29-year-old Englewood woman driving a sedan westbound crossed into the inside eastbound lane of I-10 and struck Pollock's SUV head-on, per the same blog post. State troopers said charges remain pending while the wrong-way driver receives medical treatment, and it remains unclear from the investigation whether impairment or the severe weather played a role in her entering the wrong lane.
Jackson had been moved into her FAMU dorm in Tallahassee just hours before her mother's death, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up to help the family. The fundraiser frames the loss against the backdrop of what should have been a celebratory milestone for both mother and daughter.
A Second Deadly Wrong-Way Crash on the Same Stretch of I-10
This is not the first fatal wrong-way crash on this stretch of highway this year. In June, another wrong-way collision on eastbound I-10 near Greenville in Madison County killed an Orange Park woman and a Jacksonville man after their vehicles met head-on. Rural interstate wrong-way crashes frequently result in high-speed, fatal impacts, a pattern now repeating itself along the same North Florida corridor.
Florida Statute § 316.081 requires vehicles to operate on the right half of the roadway, and it serves as the baseline statute Florida Highway Patrol investigators use when evaluating fault in head-on wrong-way crashes. Drivers who enter oncoming lanes can face traffic citations along with potential felony charges if a crash results in death or injury.
Florida's Wrong-Way Crash Problem, By the Numbers
Wrong-way crashes on Florida freeways are especially lethal. According to Florida Department of Transportation program data released in January 2025 and detailed by the National Operations Center of Excellence, roughly 25% of wrong-way highway crashes statewide result in fatalities, making death about three times more likely in a freeway wrong-way incident than in a typical arterial road crash. That same reporting found that nearly 60% of wrong-way highway crashes across Florida involve driver impairment.
State officials have been rolling out technology to catch wrong-way drivers before they cause a collision. In February, WFTV reported that FDOT deployed specialized wrong-way driver detection technology at 115 highway off-ramps during 2025, using radar, cameras, and sensors to trigger flashing LED warning signs alerting drivers and automatically notifying law enforcement. The Central Florida Expressway Authority announced this month that it achieved 100% wrong-way detection coverage across its 102 off-ramps, per PR Newswire, reporting an 88.6% turnaround rate and noting that more than 2,500 drivers have turned around since 2016. Rural interstates like I-10 in North Florida remain far less equipped with that kind of active detection infrastructure compared to urban toll roads.
Pollock's death also echoes another recent loss in Brevard County. In May 2025, 32-year-old Titusville nurse Olivia Maggs was killed in a high-speed interstate crash on I-95 that also injured her three young children, according to ClickOrlando. Local emergency responders and community fundraisers have repeatedly stepped in to help Brevard families coping with sudden traffic losses.
