Teen injured as someone on overpass drops rocks on cars
By Bobby Bryant Editor
The Darlington County Sheriff’s Office is involved with the investigation into a Dec. 10 incident in which a 15-year-old boy was seriously injured when someone dropped a “boulder” off a Florence County overpass onto a passing vehicle. The rock, or chunk of concrete, smashed the windshield of the vehicle and hit the teenager in the face, according to an incident report from the DCSO. Other vehicles were hit by rocks or fruit tossed off the overpass at Interstate 95 and East McIver Road. It was not clear why a Darlington County deputy was sent to the scene outside the county lines, but the incident report says that a deputy was dispatched “to the portion of Interstate 95 just up from the McIver Road overpass.” A Highway Patrol trooper was already on the scene. The deputy learned that someone – apparently juveniles – had been throwing big and small rocks, and also fruit, off the overpass as vehicles passed below. A family was riding in one of the vehicles, and a rock described in the incident report as a “boulder” smashed the vehicle’s windshield, hit a 15-year-old passenger in the face and knocked him unconscious. Deputies checked the area, but found no one. No arrests were made. The incident report provided the News & Press deletes the names of the injured boy and his mother, who apparently was driving the vehicle. But WBTW-TV identified the boy’s mother as Melissa Schwartz. In a video interview, Schwartz told WBTW: “I honestly didn’t know what happened. I didn’t realize something had happened until we felt the wind coming through the windshield. And that’s when I realized it was broken, and my husband’s in the back screaming, and my son is bleeding next to me.” Schwartz told WBTW her son had a possible brain bleed, multiple facial fractures and was to have surgery for broken bones. The incident report lists the incident as “assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.”