Strange wreck ends in jail time for Lincolnton man

DEARING, Ga. - As if taking a dead-end road wasn’t bad enough, a Lincolnton man’s troubles only got worse.

It all began for 47-year-old Bobby Joe Saggus as he was traveling along the Myrtle Lake Drive in McDuffie County about 4:45 p.m. Wednesday.

After realizing he was on the road that ended near Boneville Grocery, Mr. Saggus put his Lincoln Town Car in reverse to exit the road. Before he could get off the road, however, he wrecked.

His car was partially in a ditch, while the remainder of it straddled train tracks.

Mr. Saggus, who was not injured, freed himself from the wreck. But he knew his car would be destroyed if a train happened by.

Sure enough, a train was in the area, according to Trooper Matthew MacDonald of the Georgia State Patrol post in Grovetown.

Luckily, though, dispatchers with the Georgia State Patrol and McDuffie County Sheriff’s Department, worked together with CSX Transportation, Inc. dispatchers to notify the train engineer just in the nick of time about the car being partially on the tracks.

“The train missed hitting the car by only about 100 feet,” Trooper MacDonald told Morris News Service.

Mr. Saggus, who reportedly admitted having drink a couple of beers prior to the mishap, was charged with driving under the influence, failure to maintain lane and running a stop sign, Trooper MacDonald said.