6 Palm Coast Adults and Teens, 2 Children Injured in SUV Wreck on I-95, South of SR 100

Last Updated: 9:38 p.m.

A Palm Coast family of eight, two of them young children, were involved in a single-vehicle crash on I-95 at mile marker 282, two miles south of the intersection with State Road 100 in Palm Coast this afternoon.

Most or all the travelers in the van were ejected, authorities say. They had been at church in Holly Hill and were driving home to Palm Coast, a family member who’d been in a separate car said.

One of the children, Kamaris Curry, 3, was flown to Shands hospital in Jacksonville. He was listed in serious condition. David Green Jr., also 3, was transported by ground to Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach with minor injuries.

Hakeem Cornell-Dam-Gibbs, 24, was taken to Halifax in critical condition.

Dwayne Graham, 13, Leon Graham, 15, and David Green, 20, Derrick Mason, 21, and Frankie Turner, 22, were all taken to Florida Hospital Flagler with minor injuries.

A Florida Highway Patrol trooper at the scene said the vehicle had been traveling on the inside lane of the highway when a tire blew, sending it sharply off the highway and into the woods.

The older David Green was at the wheel of the vehicle.

Leon Graham had been driving in a separate car on Old Dixie Highway when one of the occupants of the crashed vehicle called him. “All he said was we got in an accident, the truck flipped over and hit a tree,” he said. “So we turned around and came this way.”

“Two of my sons were in there, two of my grandsons were ion there, my godson was in there,” Graham said as he stood on the shoulder of the Interstate, 20 paces from the crashed SUV, just after emergency personnel had cleared the scene.

The SUV lost control as it traveled north on I-95, careening off the highway onto the eastern shoulder and slamming into the line of trees. It came to rest on its side, stopped by several trees.

“When he told me my grandson wasn’t breathing, I was crying,” Graham went on. “My wife was crying. And really, then I thought they were dead. That’s what I thought. That was the first thing that came to my mind.” He was able to talk to his two sons and godson as soon as he arrive at the scene, one of his grandchildren was able to say “a little something,” but his other grandchild was “non-responsive.”

“Right now,” he said, “everybody’s praying.” Family and church members have fanned out to the various hospitals where the victims were taken.

The wreck took place at 2:47 p.m. and quickly brought traffic to a standstill in both directions. The southbound lanes began rubbernecking soon after the crash before traffic was stopped entirely while Trauma One, the emergency helicopter, landed on the northbound lanes about 100 yards north of the wreck scene.

At least four Flagler County Fire Rescue ambulances were at the scene in what authorities initially referred to as a mass-casualty incident. The Palm Coast Fire Department and Flagler Beach Fire Department also responded.

By 3:45, traffic was flowing in both directions, with two of the three northbound lanes open and all three lanes open southbound. But gazers were slowing down traffic considerably.

Ford Explorers were notorious for the frequency of their tire-related crashes, but that was more than a decade ago.

“A Washington Post analysis of national and Florida crash statistics shows,” the Post had reported in 2000, “that the Ford Explorer has a higher rate of tire-related accidents than other sport-utility vehicles, even when the popular SUV is equipped with Goodyear tires. The finding suggests that something about the Explorer may be contributing to these accidents, auto analysts said.”