Summerton police officer killed in I-95 wreck Monday

Tractor-trailer struck stopped vehicle in road on Lake Marion bridge

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NORTH SANTEE — A part-time police officer with the Town of Summerton was killed in an early Monday morning accident.

Clarendon County Coroner Bucky Mock identified the victim as Carl Wiggins, 63, of Holly Hill.

“The driver who was entrapped died on impact,” Mock said Monday afternoon. “The driver was wearing a seat belt.”

Mock said an autopsy will not be held but that toxicology results are pending.

South Carolina Highway Patrol Lt. Bob Beres said Wiggins’s Chevy Blazer was stopped in the southbound right lane of Interstate-95 near mile marker 100, which is near the crest of the bridge as it crosses Lake Marion. 

Beres said a tractor-trailer struck Wiggins’s vehicle. The driver of the tractor-trailer was not injured, and no charges are pending, he added.

“The accident is under investigation by the South Carolina Multi-Disciplinary Accident Investigation Team (MAIT),” Beres said.

Southbound traffic on the busy north-south thoroughfare was at a stand-still for more than three hours Monday morning as emergency personnel responded to the accident.

Summerton Police Chief Ray Perdue, who is out of town for his daughter’s wedding, described Wiggins as a good worker and a good friend.

“I am devastated,” Perdue said Monday afternoon from North Carolina. “He’s worked for me for, I believe, two years. He’s part-time, but whenever I’ve needed him, he’s been there.”

Perdue said Wiggins loved riding his motorcycle to work.

“He was just a good guy,” he said. “I’d like everyone to keep Wiggins’s family in their thoughts and prayers as well as his fellow officers who are also grieving.”