FLORENCE (WBTW) – There’s been an arrest in the deadly hit-and-run crash in Florence over Valentine’s Day Weekend.
According to Major Carlos Raines with the Florence Police Department, Sydney Keith Haynes, 47, of Effingham was charged Friday with hit and run and leaving the scene of an accident. Haynes was also charged with driving under the influence with death resulted.
The crash on Saturday, February 13, 2016, killed Brandon Lynn Creason, 21, of Florence, who was driving home from work. It happened on the south bound lane of South Irby Street, just north of Southside crossing.
Florence County coroner Keith Von Lutcken said Creason, who was driving a moped, died on scene shortly after 3:00 a.m. that Saturday.
Major Raines said the moped driver was still lying in the road early that morning when another car tried to stop and shift around but was unsuccessful and also hit the moped driver.
Tarak Patel is the manager at the Exonn in South Florence. Patel said before opening up the store that Saturday morning he noticed that traffic was backed up to his store along with a lot of blue lights.
“I figured out that something was wrong because there were a lot of cops there and then when customers came in they were complaining about the roadways as usual,” explained Patel.
For Patel, a crash was nothing new for the highway in front of the convenience store. Patel said mopeds aren’t to blame because the lighting on South Irby Street is very dangerous for drivers, even for his everyday customers.
“As usual people are complaining about that corner over there because it’s a dark place first of all and a lot of accidents happen there and roughly it’s like every three weeks there is one accident for sure,” said Patel.
According to the South Carolina Highway Patrol the number of people who died in moped accidents in South Carolina increased 57 percent in 2015 from 2014.
The crash is being investigated by the Florence Police Department Fatal Accident Team and criminal investigators.
