Weekend accidents claim two lives
A pair of weekend accidents brought the total number of traffic fatalities in Laurens County to six since the beginning of 2017.
Derrick Cofield, 38, of 110 Benson Place Drive in Newberry, was in a single-car accident Friday and died Sunday afternoon at Greenville Memorial Hospital.
Cofield was travelling on East Jerry Road on his birthday, Feb. 10, when he lost control of his vehicle and struck a tree and suffered traumatic head injuries. He was airlifted to Greenville Memorial Hospital.
On Saturday night, Davionica Brownlee, 32, of 111 Cambridge Street in Abbeville, was involved in a single-car accident around 11:15 p.m. and pronounced dead at the scene.
Brownlee struck a tree and died of traumatic abdominal injuries.
The six fatalities over the first six weeks of 2017 more than three times as many during the same time frame of the last three years combined. In 2015, two died in Laurens County traffic accidents between Jan. 1-Feb. 12 that year. No traffic deaths occurred over the same time frame in 2014 and 2016.
The number, which does not include two pedestrian deaths on county roads this year, is also nearly a third of the way to the 19 traffic deaths that occurred on Laurens County roadways all of last year.
