Recently, a 14-year-old resident of Columbia, Tennessee, lost her life and eleven other people were injured when the 15-passenger church van they were riding in overturned on I-40 near Waverly, according to a recent report in The Tennessean.
The group was coming back from an all-night sleepover event at a Memphis, Tennessee, church. They were on their way back to Destiny Church in Columbia with a total of 12 people inside the van, including the 24-year-old driver. Police suspect that the driver nodded off at the wheel, and lost control of the van on an I-40 ramp. The van rolled over, becoming partly crushed in the process. The 14-year-old girl, who was not wearing a seat belt, was unfortunately sitting in one of the areas of the van that was crushed in the rollover.
The rest of the van’s passengers and its driver were taken to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The three admitted to the medical center are in stable condition, while those taken to the children’s hospital remain in critical condition, according to a hospital spokesperson.
Fifteen-passenger vans are commonly used by churches and similar groups. Although they look like standard passenger vehicles, they pose hidden hazards because their length and weight make them especially likely to roll over in a crash, which can easily claim passengers’ lives. If you have been injured in an accident that involved such a vehicle, please don’t hesitate to call the experienced Tennessee 15-pasenger van accident lawyers at Massey & Associates, P.C., to learn more about your legal rights. For a free and confidential consultation about your case, call (423) 396-0720 today.
Gary Massey, Jr., is a well-known courtroom advocate practicing law in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Gary is a native of Tennessee who began practicing law in 1998. He graduated from Cumberland School of Law where he was ranked in the top 3% of his class and was an editor of the Cumberland Law Review.
