62-year-old hit and killed while putting gas in tank, NC cops say. Driver charged
A 62-year-old dad known for his ambitious spirit was hit and killed while filling his gas tank, North Carolina officials and a TV station reported.
“Emotionally, I feel lost because he was, in a sense, my compass,” Javon Springs, whose father Marcus Antonio Nivens died in the Valentine’s Day crash, told WFMY.
Now, the driver accused of hitting Nivens along an Interstate 73 ramp faces multiple charges, according to the Greensboro Police Department.
Police said Nivens’ life was cut short after he stopped his SUV on the shoulder of a highway interchange. At the time of the crash, he was “putting gas in the vehicle while wearing a yellow reflective safety vest.” A woman who gave Nivens the gas was in a car parked behind his SUV, officers wrote in a news release.
At about 4:25 p.m. Feb. 14, police said a 24-year-old Toyota driver veered off the road, striking Nivens and both of the vehicles on the shoulder. Nivens, a Winston-Salem resident, died at the scene of the crash.
Nivens had told the woman who provided him gas to stay in her car, possibly saving her life, Springs told WFMY.
The woman and another person from her car weren’t injured in the crash, police said.
The Toyota driver accused of hitting Nivens was taken to a hospital with injuries that aren’t believed to be life-threatening. The driver — a Greensboro woman — was charged with “misdemeanor death by vehicle, failure to maintain lane control, no seat belt, and no operator’s license,” according to officers.
The deadly crash closed a section of I-73 that later reopened. An investigation was ongoing as of Feb. 15, police said.
