SC coroner says truck driver had heart attack

GAFFNEY, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina coroner says the North Carolina truck driver in an Interstate 85 crash died from a heart attack before the careering into the path of oncoming traffic.

Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said Saturday that an autopsy determined 62-year-old Bobby Jay Whitner of Lincolnton, N.C., died before crashing near Blacksburg.

Fowler said Whitner was driver and lone occupant of a 2006 Kenworth tractor owned by Piedmont Transportation of Vale, N.C.

Fowler says after suffering his heart attack, Whitner drove from the highway’s northbound lanes, across the median, and through the southbound lanes before crashing through a guard rail and dropping 40-feet down an embankment.

The truck was headed north on I-85 with a load of recycled plastic powdered material Whitner picked up in Montgomery, Ala., for delivery in Newton, N.C.