Lumberton man lay dying for hours after wreck

Randy Locklear, who lives nearby, was curious about the police activity and stumbled upon the victim – unconscious and barely breathing – in thick brush and briars along U.S. Highway 301 more than two hours after the wreck.

Troopers said Alexander Scott Everette, 18, of 1910 Lamb Road, was going about 90 mph when he ran off the road.

When Trooper Ronald Starling arrived on the scene, he searched the field and the woods. He found the mangled truck but no trace of the driver.

Starling checked the license plate and began searching for the truck's owner. "He left the scene to go to this residence to see if he could find the operator of the vehicle," said Trooper David Raynor. "It's our policy that we search that area, check local hospitals, go to the residence."

Once authorities left the scene, Locklear went to take a look around and found Everette.

"I was just pressed that someone could still be down here, with the condition the truck was in," Locklear said.

Raynor said it is not uncommon for drivers to leave the scene of a wreck, no matter the condition of the vehicle.

He said it's likely Everette was ejected as his truck rolled, leaving him about 100 feet from the place the truck came to rest.

Locklear said he looked for about 20 minutes before finding Everette.

“I said, 'You have people looking for you. Help is on the way.' I said, 'Your mother wants to see you,'' Locklear said. "At that time, he responded a little bit more from the way he was breathing."

He called an ambulance, and paramedics hacked through the brush to get Everette out, but he died of his injuries.

"If they would have found him, and they would have searched for him, then he could have made it," Everette's mother, Peggy, said Friday.

Everette's father, William, questions how a civilian could find his son but not a trooper.

First Sgt. Freddy Johnson said Everette suffered "severe trauma," but no one knows whether he could have survived had he been found sooner. "You can lay there for five minutes and have serious, irreparable damage done,” he said.