An ambulance driver who police say lost control of his medical transport van and crashed into another SUV, killing two people, was granted bond Friday.
John R. Walker, 19, of Cumming, turned himself in at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday and is facing two counts of second-degree vehicular homicide, speeding and driving erratically. He was granted a $22,000 bond during a Friday preliminary hearing, records show.
Walker’s charges stem from a wreck Monday afternoon in the 4000 block of Campbellton Road. According to an arrest warrant, Walker briefly looked down, and when he looked back up a car was stopped in the road, causing him to lose control of the van. Authorities said the vehicle struck the right curb, left the road and then re-entered into incoming traffic.
It then struck a Ford head-on, officials said. The driver of the SUV, identified as 29-year-old Jada Whatley of Atlanta, was not wearing a seatbelt and was thrown from the vehicle, the warrant states. She died at the scene.
The passenger in the ambulance, identified as 29-year-old Ti’Quita Miles of Covington, was also killed in the crash.
The patient, who was being taken home after a medical appointment, sustained injuries not considered life-threatening.
The medical transport van was traveling 53 mph and the speed limit was 35 mph, the warrant states. There are no cameras in the area that might have captured the wreck and no witnesses stayed at the scene, authorities said.
“My client, he’s traumatized. He’s completely traumatized knowing that two people lost their lives,” Walker’s attorney, Jackie Patterson, told Channel 2 Action News.
Patterson told the news station his client suffered a severe fracture to his ankle that would require surgery.
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