Man, 87, dies in fiery wreck at Savannah gas station
One rescued after accident leads to inferno, which also closes businesses, traffic on DeRenne for hours
An 87-year-old man was killed in a fiery wreck Tuesday morning when his SUV collided with an oncoming car and careened into a pump at a gas station in Savannah, causing an explosion.
Yellow police tape still surrounded the charred gas station at East DeRenne Avenue and Bull Street early in the afternoon as investigators worked. A destroyed SUV lay on its side next to a pump beneath awnings blackened by fire damage, yards from propane tanks at the front of the store. Investigators identified the victim as James Lester late Tuesday afternoon.
When firefighters arrived on the scene shortly after 11:10 a.m., they rescued a South Carolina woman from inside the gas station and rushed her to safety. An attendant at the store was able to escape before firefighters arrived.
By noon, the fire was extinguished, but as it burned it sent a pillar of smoke skyward that was visible throughout midtown Savannah.
Charlene and Chuck Purvis were headed west on DeRenne when they saw “black smoke and flames” and pulled over.
“You could actually see the flames,” Chuck Purvis said. “It was higher than the building.”
Savannah-Chatham police say initial reports indicate that a Toyota Prius driven by 61-year-old John Grogan was headed north on Bull Street just north of the busy DeRenne corridor when Lester attempted to cross the street in his Chevrolet Trailblazer. Grogan was unable to stop in time, and the two vehicles collided, said police spokesman Sonny Cohrs.
Lester then accelerated through the gas station parking lot, striking a pump, dislodging the tank and sparking the explosion, police and fire officials said.
Lester was trapped inside after the SUV flipped onto the driver’s side, Cohrs said. He died at the scene.
Savannah Fire & Emergency Services spokesman Mark Keller said six fire engines, two trucks and two rescue units responded. The SUV was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.
“It was just blazing,” Keller said at the scene.
Shontelle Middleton, a truck driver from Beaufort, S.C., pulled her dump truck into the gas station parking lot shortly before the wreck. She went inside to use the restroom when she heard “a boom.”
“When I came out of the restroom, I saw the truck that was on fire and I was saying, ‘Hello, hello, hello’ — no one was in the store; they left me in the store,” said Middleton, who was still at the scene at 12:45 p.m. waiting for authorities to let her take her dump truck. “When I went to the door, I could feel the heat on the handle, so I backed up, and then I started feeling the heat coming in because no fire trucks were here by then.”
Middleton, who saw the back windows of the burning SUV give way to heat and shatter, says she moved toward the back of the store, fearing an explosion. Savannah firefighters arrived soon to rescue her, creating what Keller called “a water shield” to keep the flames away while they ran outside the building with Middleton.
Middleton said she was “happy to see freedom.”
“They made me feel comfortable until they got me to safety,” she said. “I was kind of nervous, but they were very nice.”
Firefighters and police blocked off DeRenne from Montgomery Street to Abercorn Street as they worked, and traffic on the major artery was affected for about two hours. Upon arrival, firefighters raised a second alarm. They were able to limit damage to the exterior of the building, and had to use both water and foam to contain the fire. After rescuing Middleton, they went back inside the building and located an emergency switch to turn off the pumps.
Several businesses were also affected by the alarming scene. A Subway restaurant across the street from the BP station was vacant due to road closures, its workers and bystanders standing outside to watch first responders work.
Charlene Purvis, said she was impressed by the response from police and firefighters, saying she wished she had bottles of water to give them. Temperatures for the day had just edged 90 degrees, and the heat index was more than 100 degrees.
Latifa Reeves was on her way to work at Burger King on DeRenne when police told her to stop and wait. She called her manager, who informed her that the restaurant had shut down while the situation was unfolding.
By 12:30, she was still waiting outside the police tape just east of the gas station. When she first arrived, she said, the fire was at its peak.
“I was scared and I was thinking about the person inside the car,” Reeves said. “I was hoping (the fire) didn’t come this way, because it was flying.”