A total of 20 people died on Georgia’s roads and waterways during the Independence Day holiday period this year, one more than the same time frame last year.
The Georgia Department of Public Safety reported 18 fatalities on the state’s roads during a 102-hour period between Wednesday evening and Sunday night. The total matches the number of fatalities recorded on Georgia’s roads last Fourth of July weekend during a travel period that also lasted 102 hours, the DPS said.
After just one person died on the state’s waterways last year during the holiday period, two people drowned over this past weekend.
One of those was Laquavis McCray, 16, who drowned Friday morning after family members saw him swimming in distress off the beach at Tybee Island, local police said. Beachgoers were able to rescue another 16-year-old, but McCray disappeared beneath the water. His body was later recovered by search and rescue divers.
A GoFundMe page created to raise money to bring McCray’s body back home to Atlanta and pay for his memorial service quickly met its goal over the weekend. On the fundraising page, McCray’s family described him as “a fun-loving teenager who kept us laughing with his jokes and liked to impress people with his dance moves.”
The second drowning happened Saturday at Lake Rabun in northeast Georgia, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources. Game wardens responded to reports of a drowning around 6 p.m., DNR spokesman Mark McKinnon said.
Divers found 39-year-old Robert Clinkscales under 40 to 50 feet of water near a boathouse where his phone and shoes had been discovered Saturday morning, McKinnon said. Clinkscales was last seen around 10:45 p.m. Friday. His body was recovered and turned over to the coroner about six hours after it was found, McKinnon said.
The metro Atlanta area saw a slight drop in traffic deaths over Fourth of July weekend, according to the DPS. Five people died last year in crashes in the metro area, while three fatalities were reported this year. One person was killed in a wreck investigated by DeKalb County police, and two were killed in crashes investigated by Forest Park police.
The DeKalb crash involved a single car and a pedestrian who was hit before the vehicle smashed into a power pole near the intersection of Glenwood and Candler roads, police said. The pedestrian, whose identity has not been released, was taken to the hospital but died from their injuries. The driver was also taken to the hospital with minor injuries, and the wreck cut power to more than 400 homes in the area, according to Channel 2 Action News.
Traffic investigators are still working to determine the circumstances around the crash, and a DeKalb police spokeswoman said no information was available about whether the driver would face charges.
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