Three wrecks within an hour and a mile of each other disrupted the evening commute Tuesday on GA 365 North in Cornelia.
The first crash happened around 4:39 p.m. near the on-ramp from GA 105/Business US 441. According to the Georgia State Patrol, 19-year-old Holly Wade of Gillsville was driving north on GA 365 in a Toyota Corolla when she failed to maintain her lane. She overcorrected and ran off the highway. The Corolla plowed through a road sign before stopping in a ditch.
The wreck did not injure Wade. The state patrol issued her a warning for failure to maintain a lane.
Second wreck
Less than an hour later, at 5:22 p.m., a wreck near the same location blocked the highway when a semi-truck struck an SUV. According to the state patrol report, the Cascadia Freightliner struck a Chevrolet Traverse in the rear. The truck then ran off the highway and struck a guardrail.
“The driver of the 2021 Freightliner was traveling too fast for conditions while traversing a hill crest and following too closely,” the accident report states.
The wrecked vehicles wound up in the middle of the highway blocking both northbound lanes.
Troopers charged truck driver Jenni McLeod, 26, of Gadsden, Alabama, with traveling too fast for conditions. They also gave her a warning for following too closely. The driver of the Traverse was identified as Breanna Irvin, 30, of Homer. She was carrying her two small children, ages 2 and 6, in the car with her when the accident happened. No one was injured in the wreck, according to troopers.
Third wreck
Ten minutes after the second wreck, a third and similar crash occurred less than a mile north. Troopers say 16-year-old Nataly Mendoza was driving a Chevrolet Traverse on GA 365 near Iron Ore Road when she switched lanes and struck a Freightliner.
The state patrol issued the Alto teen a warning for making an improper lane change. Mendoza and the truck driver, 54-year-old Ronald Hendricks of Greenville, Tennessee, both escaped without injury.
This article has been updated with corrected information on the Freightliner wrecks and to reflect that there were three, not two, wrecks as previously reported.
