An artist, a big brother, a man who loved to fish. Who we lost in Hilton Head bridge crash.
An art student with a constant smile. A supportive big brother. A young man who loved to fish and make his family laugh.
These are how loved ones described the three young people who died in a crash on the Hilton Head Island bridges on May 1. Three others were injured.
A pickup truck with one driver crashed head-on with a sedan carrying five people on the bridges’ lanes leaving Hilton Head. Both drivers and one passenger from the sedan were killed.
The crash sent the pickup off the bridge, and it was submerged in the water below by the time police arrived.
S.C. Highway Patrol is investigating to determine the cause of the crash. Because the investigation is still underway, the agency declined to say which car was driving on the wrong side of the road.
But a head-on collision on the bridge’s westbound lanes means somebody was driving in the wrong direction.
Fault aside — three lives were lost. One injured person is still in critical condition. From the Upstate to the Lowcountry, South Carolina communities are mourning the tragedy and planning funerals, one of which is today.
‘Never a dull moment’
Jordan Johnson, 21, of Beaufort County was an artist and the life of the party, according to one of her closest friends from high school, Kendra Crawford. Johnson, she said, was everyone’s biggest cheerleader.
“She always complimented everybody and gassed everybody up,” Crawford said. “Even if they didn’t feel pretty or confident.”
It was rare to find Johnson without a smile, she said.
Johnson was an art therapy student at Converse College in Spartanburg, and was supposed to graduate in a few weeks, a university spokesperson confirmed.
Johnson sat in the backseat of the Ford Fusion when it collided with the Chevrolet Silverado in the early morning hours of May 1.
Beaufort County’s coroner said she was pronounced dead at the scene, as were the two others.
Johnson’s friends are mourning her. They are baffled by her loss.
While a student at Whale Branch Early College High School, Johnson made a lasting impression on her friends.
Crawford, Johnson and their friend Evelyn Serrano Mundo were inseparable at the time. “The triple threat,” they called themselves.
“There was never a dull moment with her,” Mundo said. “Kendra and I have cried in laughter so many times because of her.”
They said they were excited to see what Johnson would make of herself after high school.
“I’m just so glad that I had the opportunity to have a friend and sister like her and to know a love like hers,” Crawford said. “That’s something nobody will be able to replace, and I’m so grateful for that.”
A funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at Faith Memorial Baptist Church, 28 Lands End Road, St. Helena Island.
‘Mother’s worst nightmare’
Tyler Carroll loved to hunt, fish and bring his black Labrador, Leia, everywhere he went.
Family was important to the 23-year-old from Ridgeland, and he had a close relationship with his sister, according to Jillian Carroll, his mother.
“The way he would light up when people he cared about would be in the room,” his mother said. “He was happy all the time.”
Carroll previously worked as a diesel mechanic and was two weeks into starting his own roof inspection company.
Last week, he was driving the pickup truck that crashed head-on with a sedan.
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A report from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said a crane had to be used to lift the truck out of the water below the Hilton Head bridges.
Jillian Carroll said she first thought it had to be some kind of mistake, when Tyler Carroll’s father Facetimed her with the news.
It turned out to be a “mother’s worst nightmare,” she said.
“It just doesn’t seem right I can never see him again,”
Carroll said she recognizes she’s not the only one suffering.
“We would love for the other families to know they’ve been in our hearts,” she said. “We’ve been praying the entire time for them.”
Still fighting
Jonathan Green, 27, and Lucian Reynolds, 22, are siblings. They have a relationship that transcends the petty squabbles most brothers and sisters engage in.
“They always knew that family was bigger than any problem that was going on,” said Mayra Garcia, a close friend of Reynolds.
Garcia met Reynolds when they were freshmen at Whale Branch Early College High School. She visited the siblings’ house often. Green, she said, was like the older brother she never had.
Green, of Hardeeville, was driving the Ford Fusion on May 1 and was killed.
He was an information science and technology major and worked in Information Technology at the USCB campus in Bluffton.
Reynolds was injured in the crash. As of Saturday, she was stable but in critical condition at Memorial Medical Health Center in Savannah, according to Tabor Vaux, an attorney working with the Reynolds family.
Lucian Reynolds, Vaux said, is “a fighter and an extremely strong young lady.”
Both Reynolds and Green were students and worked at the University of South Carolina, Beaufort. It’s where their mother, Twyla Reynolds, works as the executive assistant to USCB’s provost.
“We are heartbroken,” Dr. Al M. Panu, USCB’s chancellor, said in an email.
Four years ago, Reynolds and Green lost their father in a car crash on the Talmadge Bridge, Garcia said.
“Both of them have been through a lot these last couple years,” said Garcia. “This happening over again makes it harder for the family.”
This story was originally published May 10, 2021 at 4:30 AM.
