Three teenagers were sent to South Central Regional Medical Center around 7 p.m. Tuesday night after their vehicle left the roadway on Hopson Trailer Road and crashed into a tree.

Lance Chancellor, public information officer for the Jones County Emergency Management Agency, said the vehicle, a Kia Sophia, flipped several times nose to tail and ended up in the treeline after impacting a large tree.

“Jones County Sheriff’s deputy Danny Gibson was on routine patrol when one on the victims was able to escape the destroyed Kia Sophia passenger car which was hidden in the treeline and flag Gibson down,” Chancellor said. “The other two teenagers had also escaped the wreckage and were lying in the ditch with all three suffering what appeared to be serious to very serious injuries.”

Chancellor said that particular hill is very steep and can cause a traffic hazard.

“If you’re going fast, your tires can literally leave the ground,” he said. “It looks like this is what happened here. The tag was out of Harrison County so they may have not been aware that was there. It could have very easily been a triple fatality.”

Chancellor said had passengers not been able to leave the car, they may have been there all night.

“The deputy said the driver was literally covered in blood from head to toe and very seriously injured,” Chancellor said. “It would have been hard to see. You could have driven past and not even known it was there. I parked within 20 feet of the vehicle and didn’t realize it was in the trees.”

Chancellor said fire units were dispatched to the scene with Rustin Volunteer Fire & Rescue responding with Rescue 1 and Engine 1 and Sandersville Volunteer Fire & Rescue responding with Rescue 1. In addition, two ambulances from EMServ Ambulance Service and two other Jones County Sheriff’s Department units responded as well to the call. Rustin VFD Fire Chief Shane Lilly served as incident commander during the incident.

Emergency service units were on the scene until just after 8 p.m. conducting accident investigation and vehicle recovery operations.