Georgia State Troopers charged a Sautee man for following too closely after an accident on Highway 17 that injured him and two others.
According to the Georgia State Patrol, James Hadley Cox, 71, was airlifted to Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville following the crash. Troopers say Cox was driving a 2009 Land Rover south on GA 17 near the GA 105 intersection at Haye’s Corner around 5:40 p.m. on July 26. He told the investigating trooper that he “blacked out at the wheel” and did not see the vehicle in front of him.
The Land Rover rear-ended a 2018 Toyota Avalon driven by 80-year-old Larry Ray Dodd of Clarkesville. The impact forced the Avalon off the roadway, where it struck a road sign and fallen tree before traveling down an embankment. The Land Rover wound up in a ditch.
The collision injured Dodd and a passenger in his vehicle, Evelyn Williams, 85, also of Clarkesville. Habersham County EMS transported both of them to Northeast Georgia Medical Center for treatment.
This is the third serious accident on Highway 17 in the past few weeks and the second in the area of Haye’s Corner.
On July 11, a teenager was seriously injured in a single-vehicle crash near the Habersham/White County line. Six days later, a 19-year-old girl was killed in a two-vehicle crash.
