NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A 33-year-old Nashville man was killed Monday night on Interstate 24 East near Haywood Lane after he left his car following one crash and was hit by a tractor-trailer while crossing the highway on foot, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department investigators said.
Police identified him as Wilondja Mtendji. Officers from the South Precinct were sent to the interstate around 8:15 p.m. on a report of a hit-and-run involving a car and a tractor-trailer. Investigators later determined that Mtendji had been driving the car in that first collision.
His car ended up stopped against the middle retaining wall. He then got out and ran across the lanes of traffic, where a second tractor-trailer struck him. Emergency crews rushed him to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, but he did not survive his injuries.
The driver of the second truck pulled over and stopped right away on the right shoulder. Investigators said that driver showed no signs of impairment.
Police have treated the two crashes as connected and said the first wreck led directly to the fatal one. The case remains under investigation by the department. The first call that brought officers out was reported as a hit-and-run, and the crash that killed Mtendji happened on the same stretch of the eastbound interstate a short time later near the Haywood Lane interchange, before the eastbound lanes could be fully cleared from the first collision.
The death came two days after another person on foot was killed when a car hit them on a Nashville street Saturday, adding to a difficult stretch for pedestrian safety in the city.
Section: More Nashville TN crime news
Filed under: Nashville TN Traffic News
