An 83 year old male from Belton was fatally injured early Saturday morning in a storm related headon collision on Hwy. 8 in West Pelzer.
According to reports, Main Street was down to a one lane road, due to a tree which had fallen across the roadway, which cause two vehicles to be traveling different directions in the same lane hitting head on. The collision occurred around 1:40 am.
Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore identified the victim as Bobby Jean Foster, of Belton.
According to Shore, the victim was the sole occupant of his vehicle and was pronounced deceased on the scene. Two victim’s in the other vehicle were transported to Prisma Health for evaluation and treatment of non-life threatening injuries.
According to Coroner Shore, the investigation indicated that the victim was the unrestrained driver of a Nissan Frontier traveling east on Main Street in Pelzer and was struck head-on by a Ford Explorer traveling west. The Ford Explorer was attempting to go around a large tree and down power lines that were blocking the west bound lane and traveled into the oncoming lane of traffic striking the victims vehicle.
Shore attributed the collision and weather-related death to Hurricane Helene due to the damage in the area and the road obstacles.
This was the third death attributed to the storm in Anderson County. Two others were wind related as trees fell on houses.
The Anderson County Fire Department (Pelzer Fire), Medshore Ambulance Service, Anderson
County EMS, South Carolina Highway Patrol and the Office of the Coroner responded.
The investigation is on-going by the Anderson County Office of the Coroner and the South
Carolina Highway Patrol.
