A 90-year-old South Carolina woman has died after a two-vehicle crash at a rural North Carolina intersection sent five people to the hospital, including the woman herself, who did not survive her injuries. Maggie Hill, of Gaffney, South Carolina, was riding as the front right passenger in a Volkswagen Jetta that was struck by a Toyota RAV4 late Sunday afternoon near Mill Spring in Polk County.
According to WLOS, the crash happened just after 4:20 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of N.C. 108 and Post Office Road, an intersection in eastern Polk County where the highway serves as a main east-west corridor through the unincorporated community of Mill Spring. The Jetta, carrying two occupants, was traveling west on N.C. 108 when the eastbound RAV4, carrying three occupants, failed to yield the right-of-way while attempting a left-hand turn onto Post Office Road, per the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.
All five people involved in the crash were transported to Spartanburg Regional Medical Center in South Carolina, according to the outlet's report.
Coroner Confirms Death, Cause Still Under Review
Hill was pronounced dead at Spartanburg Regional following the crash, according to the same report. State troopers were notified of her death at 11:04 p.m. Sunday, the outlet noted, and she was the only occupant among the five reported deceased.
Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger issued a news release about the crash Monday, confirming Hill's death. Because Hill died at a hospital located within Spartanburg County, South Carolina, that office holds medicolegal jurisdiction to determine the cause and manner of death even though the collision itself occurred across the state line in North Carolina.
Troopers Rule Out Speed, Impairment
The Highway Patrol said neither speed nor impairment was a factor in the collision, the outlet's report notes, pointing instead to the RAV4 driver's failure to yield while turning left as the cause. Under North Carolina General Statutes § 20-155, a driver turning left within an intersection or onto a side road must yield to any oncoming vehicle close enough to pose an immediate hazard.
Charges remain pending further investigation and consultation with the district attorney's office, per the same account. If the case proceeds without evidence of impairment, it could fall under N.C.G.S. § 20-141.4(a2), which classifies unintentionally causing a death while violating a traffic law as misdemeanor death by vehicle, a Class A1 misdemeanor, according to Powers Law Firm. The crash investigation falls under District III of Troop G of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, which operates out of Hendersonville and covers Polk, Henderson, and Transylvania counties, per the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.
A Known Risk on Rural NC 108
N.C. 108 is a 22.1-mile, two-lane rural highway that runs east-west through Polk and Rutherford counties, linking Tryon, Columbus, and Mill Spring before ending in Rutherfordton, according to a description on Wikipedia. The corridor carries local commuter and agricultural traffic through the Blue Ridge foothills, and it isn't the first time left-turn collisions have drawn scrutiny along the route.
An NCDOT safety evaluation mentions two left-turn crashes. Separately, N.C. 9 improvements from N.C. 108 to U.S. 74 include widening travel lanes from 10 to 12 feet and adding paved shoulders and rumble strips. Left-turn failure-to-yield crashes at rural two-lane intersections remain among North Carolina's most frequent multi-vehicle collision types resulting in severe broadside impacts and passenger fatalities, according to an analysis from Nagle & Associates, P.A.
