James Dylan Blankenship, 14, Wixtown Road, Westmoreland, died at the hospital after suffering massive multiple injuries in the 5:10 p.m. wreck. He was seated in the back seat right side, according to the Tennessee Highway Patrol official accident report of the fatality.
Two of the victims were pinned in the wreckage; Kyle Hall, 16, a freshman at Macon County High School was the driver of the Toyota, and it took firefighters, rescue squad members, law enforcement and emergency medical personnel more than thirty minutes to extricate Hall from behind the steering wheel of the vehicle.
The top and doors of the car were cut from the wreckage to facilitate rescue and removal of the accident victim from the mangled wreckage of the small car. Hall sustained multiple broken bones in the lower part of his body as well as internal injuries to his spleen and liver from the impact.
Pinned in the Toyota for less time, but also critically injured was Jared Sullivan, 15, a sophomore at MCHS. Sullivan suffered a punctured lung, multiple broken bones, facial lacerations and spleen and liver damage from the impact. He was seated in the front passenger position at the time of the crash.
Also critically injured was Thomas Wilson, 16, a freshman at MCHS, who was seated in the back seat left side.
Wilson was undergoing surgery Tuesday morning to repair a badly broken hip, according to his mother, who was contacted at the hospital. Wilson also suffered severe head injuries, facial lacerations and internal trauma to his spleen and liver, and like the other two survivors of the crash, remains in critical condition at the Nashville hospital. All three were transported to Vanderbilt by two medical helicopters which landed at a landing zone near the Frito Lay warehouse on Hwy. 52-west, just half a mile from the accident scene.
The driver of the 1994 Ford dump truck, Ronnie W. Reece, 51, Lauren Lane, Westmoreland, suffered a laceration to his forehead but was otherwise not injured. Reece apparently made every effort to avoid the collision, leaving the roadway and traveling into a residential yard on the south side of Old Hwy. 52.
Reece. was traveling east toward his home when the...
westbound Toyota crossed the center...
line while negotiating a curve and struck the dump truck head-on. Both vehicles came to a rest on the west bound shoulder of Old Hwy. 52, just a quarter of a mile east of the intersection of Old 52 and the Rocky Mound Road.
Westmoreland Fire and Rescue Squad, West Macon Rescue Squad, Macon County Rescue Squad, MCSD deputies, and paramedics from Sumner, Macon and Trousdale County all responded to the emergency call. Five ambulances and several fire trucks were on the scene before the last of the victims was removed and transported from the crash site.
James Dylan Blankenship was the son of Mike and Janet Wilson and a 14 year old student at Lighthouse Christian Academy. His parents said Dylan loved to ride four-wheelers and motorcycles, loved to hunt, played football and “was a fun loving kid who always lived life to the fullest.”
The family has requested any memorials be in the form of a funeral expense fund. Donations can be made through Alexander Funeral Home.
Funeral services for young Dylan Blankenship will be conducted at Millers Chapel Church on Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 1 p.m. with Rev. Kimble Willoughby officiating. Interment will follow in the Millers Chapel Cemetery.
The family will receive friends at the Alexander Funeral Home on Tuesday, beginning at 6 p.m. and continue until 8 a.m. Thursday when they will be transferred to the Millers Chapel Church.
Dylan Blankenship is survived by his father and mother, Michael and Janet Wilson; brothers Lane and Dalton Wilson; grandparents Paulette Blankenship of the Wixtown Community and James and Karen Blankenship of Lafayette; and great-grandparents, Paulette Blankenship, Travis Blankenship, Bonnie Cates and Linda Moss.
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