Fiery crash leaves 2 dead

By Michelle Jarboe
Staff Writer

Firefighters respond to the scene of a multi-vehicle accident.

GREENSBORO — Two High Point residents are dead and a 19-year-old man is in jail after a fiery wreck Sunday morning on Interstate 40/85 in Guilford County.

The driver of a broken-down vehicle and another driver who stopped to help died when a Ford Ranger pickup veered off the highway and ran into their cars just before 11 a.m., starting a fire that consumed all three vehicles.

Highway Patrol officials had not released the victims' names as of Sunday night. Trooper K. Kutzer did say the pair was from High Point and knew each other.

The truck's driver, Jose de Jesus Euzondo Balderas of Washington, N.C., was not injured. He has been charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

He also has been charged with driving while impaired, driving without a license, reckless driving and underage consumption of alcohol, according to arrest warrants. Balderas was being held Sunday night in the Guilford County Jail on a $60,000 secured bond.

The wreck, on the southbound side of the highway between Rock Creek Dairy and Mount Hope Church roads, backed up traffic across all lanes for hours. Officials with the Highway Patrol had cleared the scene by late afternoon Sunday and were working to reconstruct the accident.

Witnesses reported that the truck had been weaving on the highway before it veered into the left emergency lane, officials said.

That was where a Honda and a Dodge had pulled over, the first car disabled and the second driver assisting. Both drivers were seated in the Dodge when the pickup struck the nearby retaining wall and ran into the car, Kutzer said.

The car's occupants were pronounced dead at the scene.

A passenger in the truck with Balderas was unharmed. Both occupants of the truck were wearing seatbelts, Kutzer said, and both escaped before the truck caught fire.

This is not the first wreck in recent months to take the lives of people dealing with a broken-down car. In July, four people trying to load a stranded Mercury Cougar onto a trailer were struck and killed by an Isuzu sport utility vehicle along University Drive in Elon.

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