A man was killed and his fiancée was seriously injured after an impaired driver struck them on the side of the highway as they were changing a flat tire, according to police
Christopher Hammonds, 39, and his fiancée Lisa had pulled over on the side of Highway 29 in North Carolina on May 9 when 25-year-old Robert Lynn Faison Jr. allegedly struck them after his car drifted onto the shoulder
Faison is facing five charges including driving while impaired and felony death by vehicle
One man is dead and a woman is seriously injured after an allegedly impaired driver hit them while they were changing a flat tire on the side of a highway.
According to local North Carolina outlets FOX 8, WXII and WFMY, 39-year-old Christopher Hammonds and his fiancée Lisa had pulled over on the side of Highway 29 in Greensboro at around 12:30 a.m. local time on Friday, May 9, to change a flat tire when they were struck by a car that drifted onto the shoulder.
Police told the outlets that 25-year-old driver Robert Lynn Faison Jr. was impaired when he struck Hammonds and his fiancée’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. The couple had pulled onto the shoulder of the northbound lane and turned on their hazards when Faison allegedly hit them as he was driving north.
“They were doing just a simple tire blowout. They were fixing it, and a drunk driver swerved over and hit them on the side of the highway,” Connie Anderson, Hammonds’ sister, told WFMY.
According to the outlets, Hammonds, a father of four, was pronounced dead, and Lisa — whose last name was not given — was taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Faison was also taken to the hospital with minor injuries, and police told the outlets that he is now facing five different charges: driving while impaired, failing to maintain lane control, failing to reduce speed to avoid a collision, felony “serious injury by vehicle” and felony “death by vehicle.”
The local public school district, Guilford County Schools, told FOX 8 that the accused driver is a high school science teacher.
Speaking with the local outlets, Hammonds’ relatives opened up about just how much his loss is impacting their family. They also shared that Lisa had recently completed breast cancer treatments at the time of the crash.
“She’s got many broken bones, collapsed lungs, lacerations to body parts, internally, it’s just a really sad situation,” Anderson told WFMY.
Anderson also said that Hammonds’ children are missing him deeply, especially as his daughter Tiffany prepares to graduate in the coming months.
“[Hammonds] is not gonna be here to be able to watch his daughter here, who’s fixing to walk across the stage [at her graduation],” she said. “He’s got another one that’s gonna be walking across the stage next year, [and he won’t] even know what it feels like to be a grandfather.”
“His hug is definitely different like no other man, and I’m not gonna get that anymore or get to hear his voice,” his daughter Tiffany added to WFMY.
A GoFundMe established to help Anderson pay for Hammonds’ funeral expenses has raised nearly $1,000 as of Sunday, May 11, while another GoFundMe established to support Lisa during her recovery process, which will include physical rehabilitation, has raised more than $2,000 of its $10,000 goal.
Speaking to WFMY, Anderson pleaded for impaired drivers to think about incidents like these before getting behind the wheel.
“Drinking and driving, please, for the world out there, think twice,” she said. “In an incident like this, it took the life of someone and seriously injured another.”