11 A.M. UPDATE
The Indianapolis driver killed while attempting to cross the I-65 northbound lanes has been identified as Cordell Jackson Jr., 39, Indianapolis, the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department said.
The investigation is ongoing.
Primary Officers: BCSO Deputy Grant Carlson, ISP Trooper Matt Holley
Assisting Officers: Bartholomew County Sheriff Matthew A. Myers, Deputy Warner, Deputy Newland, Deputy Fluhr, Deputy Clark, Trooper Eggers, Trooper Simpkins, Officer Tompkins
Agencies on Scene: Indiana State Police, Edinburgh Police Department, Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, Columbus Regional Hospital EMS, German Township Volunteer Fire Department, Indiana Department of Transportation, Bartholomew County EOC
ORIGINAL STORY
COLUMBUS, Ind. — An Indianapolis man was hit by a semi and killed when trying to cross the northbound lanes of I-65 Wednesday night on foot after a series of accidents blocked the interstate for more than an hour.
Bartholomew County Sheriff deputies were called to the 76.5 mile marker of southbound I-65 at 9:21 p.m about a personal injury accident involving a Chevy Equinox and semi in the southbound lanes, Sheriff Matt Myers said.
While deputies were on their way to the scene, 911 dispatchers received multiple calls that the Equinox driver, who may or may not have been injured in the accident, had left the scene by taking another similar Equinox belonging to another driver who had stopped at the scene to help, Myers said. That driver who had stopped to help was a 63-year-old male from Indianapolis.
While deputies began investigating the original accident, other deputies went southbound to try to find the Equinox that was heading south from the accident scene.
That driver crashed the Equinox he had taken into the median barriers, got out of the vehicle and ran across northbound lanes of I-65 at the 77 mile marker, where he was hit by a semi and pronounced dead at the scene, Myers said.
Deputies are not releasing the identity of the victim, saying they know at this time he is a 39-year-old male from Indianapolis.
The semi driver, a 48-year-old male from Charlotte, North Carolina, was not injured.
Indiana State Police and deputies are doing an accident reconstruction of the two scenes and an investigation is continuing into what happened at the first accident scene that led to the fatality, Myers said.
The northbound lanes of the interstate were closed for about an hour and a half and the southbound lanes were closed for about 40 minutes, Myers said.
With the two Equinox vehicles being so similar, Myers said it is unknown if the driver in the first accident mistakenly took the wrong vehicle, and did not realize it was not his vehicle.
“We don’t want to say he intentionally stole it,” Myers said, adding that it is possible the driver, who was subsequently killed, had been injured in the first accident and was not aware that he was taking the wrong vehicle.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
