A Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, police officer is on administrative leave after killing a woman on the beach while patrolling in his work vehicle on Thursday morning.
The woman was hit near the Nash Street beach access area near the Springmaid Pier around 1:05 p.m. by a Horry County Police Ford Ranger Pickup truck, Fox Carolina reported.
Videos and pictures received by the outlet show several beachgoers crowding around the front of the truck. One witness told the outlet that people were trying to lift the truck off the woman after she was pinned under one of the police vehicle’s wheels.
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“I heard and saw nothing until I heard her scream, and it was the most powerful scream, something that you can’t, like, nothing from the movies or anything. It was just pure fear or pain or both,” witness Amanda Bilodeau recalled. “Immediately, myself and probably everybody on the beach turned around and just went running.”
The South Carolina Highway Patrol (SCHP) is investigating the accident, the Horry County Police Department wrote in a Facebook post. SCHP told Fox Carolina that the truck was coming off of the beach access ramp and onto the beach when the woman was hit.
Dennis Miller, another bystander, told the outlet that beachgoers tried to help the trapped woman. “She was pinned underneath the vehicle, so a bunch of men, we came over, we did our best to lift the car up off her,” he said.
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“From my point of view, I had my back turned. I heard somebody yell ‘There’s somebody that’s been run over,'” Miller told WBTW. “We run over here, and yeah, there’s a lady on the ground and there’s a truck on top of her.”
“We hate that anything like that happened, and as far as the lady, we’re just so sad for her, too. It’s just an unfortunate accident,” Miller told Fox Carolina.
The victim, who has not yet been named pending notification of her family, was taken to Grand Strand Medical Center, where she succumbed to her injuries.
This is not the first deadly incident involving a beachgoer and a police vehicle on a Horry County beach. A person was hit by another Horry County patrol vehicle while lying on the beach in Garden City in 2020, according to WBTW.
The Horry County Police Department wrote in a statement that “what occurred on the beach yesterday was a tragedy and we know our community is hurting.”
“We also know our community has questions. We do too,” the department wrote. “At this time, the officer involved is on administrative leave.”
