In the
second wreck in less than a week involving teenage
drivers and fast cars, four young Stockbridge residents
were injured late last night in a fiery crash on a Henry
County road.
Henry County police Lt. Michael Gaddis said
police are investigating excessive speed as the cause of
the 11:30 p.m. wreck on Mays Road near East Atlanta
Road.
There were several skid marks where the Pontiac Grand
Am left the roadway in a curve and struck a tree, Gaddis
said. "On a side road like that, the speed limit is
only 25 miles an hour," he said.
Neighbors who rushed to the crash site after hearing
the wreck found the car on fire and helped the four
occupants get out of the wreckage.
The driver, Mark Shane Morgan, 18, was taken by
helicopter to Atlanta Medical Center with a broken leg,
Gaddis said. A 16-year-old female, whose name was not
released, was airlifted to Grady Memorial Hospital with
head injuries, he said.
Jeremy Ellenburg, 22, was sent to Henry Medical
Center with a possible collapsed lung, and Ray Poteet,
21, was taken to Henry Medical Center with possible back
injuries, Gaddis said.
Gaddis said today that officers smelled alcohol in
the vehicle. "Investigators are checking into that
matter now," he said. "Hopefully, we should
know a little bit more later."
James Christian and his wife, Gladys, have lived on
Mays Road, in a house set back from the sharp s-curve,
for 30 years.
Christian, a Korean war veteran, said he was awakened
by the squeals of tires and a loud "boomp! --
that's what it sounded like" -- and knew what had
happened.
About six years ago, Christian was first on the scene
when two teenagers crashed into a tree on the same sharp
curve. He saw the bodies then, "and I just wasn't
going to go down there and see it again."
"The kids come through here too fast, they drive
like maniacs," he said. "You say something
about it to people and they say, 'well, my kids don't do
that.' But I see it nearly every day. They come flying
down this road."
It's not just teenagers, other neighbors said. Adult
motorists -- even truck drivers -- exceed the posted 25
mph speed limit, using Mays Road as a shortcut between
Old Conyers Road and East Atlanta Road outside
Stockbridge.
"Look at them, that's what I'm talking
about," said Sonya Hicks, pointing to a red compact
speeding down a straight stretch of Mays Road toward Old
Conyers Road. "I've been here five years and people
are always driving like that."
Saturday night, two Lassiter High School juniors were
killed in a wreck that Cobb County police said occurred
when the two were racing another vehicle on Chastain
Road.