Bluffton man identified as victim of fiery single-car crash Saturday

A 55-year-old man died in a fiery, single-vehicle accident on Island West Drive in Bluffton on Saturday night, according to Beaufort County officials.

The man was identified as Wade Bumpers of Bluffton, according to the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office.

EMS declared Bumpers, who was the only person in the car, dead at the scene of the accident, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office report.

When Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived, the car was “fully engulfed in flames,” the report said.

Bluffton Township Fire District was dispatched to the scene just before 9 p.m., spokesperson Capt. Lee Levesque said Monday afternoon.

The S.C. Highway Patrol has taken over the investigation. A spokesperson for the Highway Patrol did not immediately return a phone call Monday afternoon seeking comment.

Bumpers was the second person to die in a vehicle crash in the Bluffton area in November.

A 91-year-old Bluffton woman, Waltraud Schulze, was killed in a two vehicle accident on Bluffton Parkway on Nov. 1.

A five-vehicle crash on U.S. 278 near Simmonsville Road on Nov. 21 sent one person to the hospital. Four others had minor injuries in that crash.