The Tennessee Highway Patrol released the details of an early morning crash on Monteagle Mountain that shut down the eastbound lanes of Interstate 24 for several hours Sunday.
According to the THP, an 82-year-old man driving the wrong way was killed early Sunday morning when his car hit another head-on and then was struck by a tractor-trailer.
The THP said John Iwao Nagata, of Huntsville, Ala., was driving west in the eastbound lanes at mile marker 135 in a Toyota Venza when he hit an oncoming Chrysler minivan head-on. Then a Kenworth tractor trailer hit Nagata’s car.
Nagata was killed. The people in the minivan were from Milwaukee, Wis. The driver, Zachary Sowin, 29, was unhurt. Passengers Lilly Sowin, 36; Gabriel Sowin, 9; Abigail Sowin, 6, and Arielizabeth Nguen, 17, were injured.
The Grundy County Sheriff’s Office said two people were transported by by air ambulance for medical treatment.
The driver of the Kenworth, Joseph Bazan, 63, of West Bend, Wis., was unhurt.