SANTEE, SOUTH CAROLINA — Dennis Masson was driving home from a hunting trip with a friend Thursday morning when the fog over Lake Marion on Interstate 95 closed in so tight there was almost nothing left to see — and then, without warning, the world in front of him started falling apart.
“About halfway across the bridge, you could only see about 30 feet,” Masson said.
What happened next unfolded in seconds. A tractor-trailer in front of him stopped. The semi behind it couldn’t. “There were two semis in front of us. You could see the first semi put his flashers on, and the other semi swerved to miss him because he had stopped.” The swerving semi crashed. That set off everything else.
“There was a car, a pickup truck, and then a bigger truck hit the pickup. The pickup then hit a little car behind us, and that car hit our pickup,” Masson said.
He and his friend climbed out of their damaged truck unhurt. Around them, driver after driver was doing the same — emerging from crumpled vehicles in the middle of a fog-shrouded bridge over a lake, trying to process what had just happened.
“It was just car after car walking out of there, and you just had never seen anything like that before,” he said. The damage to some of the vehicles defied description. “One car they took out of here looked like a Rice Krispies treat, the way it was crumpled.”
Dozens of vehicles were later left at a rest area in Santee as drivers waited for word on their cars and the investigation continued. Masson and his friend waited to find out whether their pickup would still be drivable.
Despite everything, he said they knew how fortunate they were. “We’re just lucky we didn’t get hurt. God was on our side today.”
What Happened
The crash on October 1 involved an estimated 65 vehicles including 15 tractor-trailers on the I-95 bridge over Lake Marion near the Orangeburg-Clarendon County line. Dense fog that had settled over the bridge drastically reduced visibility, giving drivers little to no warning of stopped traffic ahead. One person was airlifted. Eleven others were treated for minor injuries. Four people required extrication. No deaths were reported. Southbound I-95 was closed for more than 20 hours before reopening around 6 a.m. Friday. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
Interviews courtesy of local media.
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