TV Photojournalist Joe Loy Killed On Assignment By Hit-And-Run Driver

 

SPARTANBURG COUNTY, SC (May 15, 2007) – Television photojournalist and assignment editor Joe Loy of WHNS-TV FOX Carolina News was killed Monday evening while covering the aftermath of a traffic accident on Interstate 85 when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver.

WHNS-TV says Loy, 58, was a veteran newsman and he had worked at FOX Carolina since 1999 as a photographer and assignment editor.

South Carolina State Police are still investigating the crash. Early reports say that Loy was sent to the scene of an accident on Interstate 85 near exit 70 in Spartanburg County around 6 p.m. on Monday afternoon. A tractor-trailer hauling lumber overturned while entering I-85 from I-26, sending lumber and debris across the highway's three southbound lanes.

Details are not yet clear, but the station reports on their Web site that after Loy pulled over to the side of the northbound highway at the scene of the southbound wreck there was a separte collision. A red Ford pickup truck was seen weaving in and out of northbound traffic just before the fatal accident, and police say this truck cut off the path of a 1998 Chevrolet van. The northbound van swerved to avoid the red truck and then hit Loy’s news truck.

Witnesses said Loy had been standing in the emergency lane next to his news vehicle, a 1998 FOX Carolina Ford Explorer, and that he was in between it and the road’s guardrail when his news vehicle was struck by the swerving van. The collision pinned him between his news truck and the guardrail. He died about 25 minutes later at the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center where he’d been taken for treatment.

The red Ford pickup truck fled the scene and police are seeking any information on the vehicle and its driver. They believe it’s a late-1990s or early 2000s model truck, according to information published in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal today.

Loy had been president of the South Carolina Associated Press Broadcasters in 2004 and 2005, according to the AP, and he had previously worked for WSPA-TV in Spartanburg and WIS-TV in Columbia, SC. He was a volunteer for the Double Springs Fire Department in Townville, SC, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Clemson, WHNS-TV says. The photographer was married and was a father and grandfather, the station reports.

Friends and co-workers are leaving comments about Loy, who was popular and well-known in his community, on this Web page.

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