Family members, friends and an entire community are grieving after a Triple Community Fire Department firefighter was hit and killed by a pickup truck while clearing storm debris in Drexel. On October 8, Department officials said that two firefighters were clearing debris from the roadway on Highway 70 when a pickup truck driven by Randall Stewart traveling eastbound struck firefighter Jason Hensley, 40, just before midnight.
Hensley was killed on impact.
The North Carolina Highway Patrol spent hours Monday morning reconstructing the accident to determine how fast Stewart was going. "He should have seen the lights and the visibility is probably a thousand feet there's no reason he shouldn't have been able to get stopped," NC Highway Patrolman Daniel Lane said.