(MURFREESBORO)  Here's an update on the crash that took two lives around 8:00 o'clock Friday night (6/26/2020) on I-24 near the Joe B. Jackson Parkway. 

According to the Tennessee Highway Patrol's accident report, a 2016 Nissan Maxima was traveling toward Nashville (westbound) on I-24. For reasons yet to be determined, that driver crossed the grassy median and into the opposited lane of traffic at the 84 mile marker (eastbound, toward Chattanooga). 

It then slammed into the passenger side of a 1998 Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck. 41-year old Matthew Coppernoll of Roopville, Georgia was the only person in the truck. A Good Samaritan driver took him to St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital. 

Both fatalities were in the Nissan Maxima. One was the driver, 49-year old James Black of Cleveland, Tennessee, the other death was the passenger sitting next to him in the front seat. They were both pronounced deceased at the scene.

There were two passengers in the rear of the Nissan. Rutherford County Emergency Medical Services took both of them to Vanderbilt Medical Center, with one being to the Children's Hospital. 

For several hours Friday night, eastbound traffic was detoured onto US highway 41 toward Manchester.   

Case #320039427