WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — A 32-year-old West Columbia motorcyclist was killed on Interstate 26 in Lexington County in the early hours of Saturday, November 7, after his motorcycle struck the back of another vehicle, he was thrown onto the interstate, and several vehicles then struck him and drove on without stopping, the Lexington County Coroner's Office says. The drivers who left have not been identified, and the South Carolina Highway Patrol's special crash-reconstruction team is investigating alongside the coroner.
Source: Lexington County Coroner's Office release, via Southwest Lexington Ledger
Coroner Margaret Fisher identified the man who died as Preston Wayne Grantham, 32, of West Columbia. The crash happened at about 1:38 a.m. on Saturday, November 7, on the westbound side of I-26 at mile marker 104, in the Columbia area of Lexington County, according to the coroner's release.
Source: Lexington County Coroner's Office release, via Southwest Lexington Ledger
How the crash happened, on the official account
The Highway Patrol's account, reported by WIS News 10, is that Grantham was riding a 2025 Yamaha motorcycle westbound when he rear-ended a 2009 Dodge Charger near mile marker 104. The coroner's release describes the same first impact more generally — the motorcycle struck the back of a vehicle that was also travelling westbound — and the two accounts agree on what followed.
Source: WIS News 10, reporting the South Carolina Highway Patrol account
The impact threw Grantham from the motorcycle onto the interstate. He was then struck by several more vehicles. None of those drivers remained at the scene, and none of the vehicles has been identified, Coroner Fisher's release states. Grantham was wearing a helmet. He was pronounced dead at the scene from his injuries.
Source: Lexington County Coroner's Office release, via Southwest Lexington Ledger
Two investigations are running: the coroner and the Highway Patrol's MAIT team
The case is being investigated by the Lexington County Coroner's Office and by the South Carolina Highway Patrol's MAIT unit — the Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team, the specialist unit the Highway Patrol sends to serious and fatal crashes to reconstruct, vehicle by vehicle and mark by mark, exactly what happened. A reconstruction matters doubly in this case, because the vehicles that struck Grantham after he was thrown are unknown: investigators have to work backwards from the scene, the motorcycle and the Charger to work out what hit him, and in what order.
Officials have not released why the motorcycle struck the vehicle ahead of it, how fast any vehicle was travelling, whether the Charger stopped or what its driver has told troopers, or any description of the vehicles that left. No charges have been announced. The number of vehicles involved beyond the motorcycle, the Charger and the 'several' that followed has not been fixed publicly.
Why an empty-looking interstate at 1:38 a.m. is the most dangerous kind
Mile marker 104 sits on the Columbia end of I-26, the interstate that runs from the South Carolina Upstate through Columbia and down to Charleston — a corridor that carries heavy overnight freight as well as local traffic, and one Punjabi truckers driving the Southeast know well. At 1:38 a.m. the road feels empty, speeds are at their highest, and a rider down on dark pavement is almost invisible until a driver is on top of him. That is the sequence the coroner describes here: the first crash was survivable in the way rear-end crashes sometimes are — a helmeted rider, thrown clear — and it was the following traffic, in the dark, that killed him. South Carolina law requires a driver involved in a crash in which someone is injured or killed to stop and remain at the scene; leaving the scene of a fatal crash is a felony. Whether the drivers who left knew what they had struck is one of the questions the MAIT reconstruction is meant to answer.
What happens next
The Highway Patrol's MAIT investigation and the coroner's investigation both continue, the coroner's office said. Their findings will establish the full vehicle sequence, and whether any driver who left the scene can be identified and charged. No funeral or family statement had been released in the reporting reviewed for this story, and Awaaz Punjab has not published any detail about Grantham beyond what the coroner released. Anyone who was on westbound I-26 near mile marker 104 at about 1:38 a.m. on Saturday and saw the crash is the kind of witness a reconstruction like this depends on; the investigating agencies are the South Carolina Highway Patrol and the Lexington County Coroner's Office.