Three Cross Country Runners From Tennessee Struck By Truck


Three cross country runners from Morristown-Hamblen (Tennessee) East High School are recovering after being struck by a pickup truck on September 1 during practice, the Citizen Tribune first reported. 

One of the three injured runners suffered a severe head laceration and was treated at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, according to the Morristown Police Department. Names of the injured runners were not released. 

The driver of the truck, 67-year-old Eucario Salazar Gomez, was not charged in the accident after police deemed "the collision at the intersection with East Third South Street near Dockery Funeral was unavoidable." 

Sgt. Brian Sulfridge, a Morristown Police Department specialist in crash reconstructions, said a "northbound truck towing a large trailer stopped to let the westbound runners pass and blocked the view of Gomez and the high school students." 

Gomez reportedly managed to apply his brakes before hitting the runners, Sulfridge said. 

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