An Indianapolis man was hit by a semi and killed while 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 a different 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.
Both vehicles were dark gray or black and very similar in appearance, deputies said.
While deputies began investigating the first accident in the southbound lanes, other deputies went south on the interstate to try to find the driver in the wrong Equinox heading southbound on the interstate.
That driver crashed the Equinox 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.
The sheriff’s department identified the driver Thursday morning as Cordell Jackson Jr., 39, 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 three accident scenes and an investigation is continuing into what happened with the Equinox switch that eventually 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, not realizing it was not his.
“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 or even where he was when he crashed further south of the first accident scene.
Agencies assisting at the scene included 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 emergency operations.
