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Posted on 08/19/2026 5:27:30 PM PDT by Red Badger
Two student athletes were killed and seven others injured, some critically, when a driver struck members of a Tennessee university cycling team during a training ride, authorities said Wednesday.
The driver now faces multiple charges, including vehicular homicide by recklessness, officials said.
The crash involving the vehicle and cyclists occurred Wednesday morning on a highway in Carter County, in the northeastern part of the state, according to the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
The cycling team is from Milligan University, a private Christian institution in Elizabethton, school officials said. Eleven students were on the training ride at the time, according to Milligan University President Stephen Waers.
The university identified the two students who died in the crash as Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers, both sophomores.
Seven other students were transported to Johnson City Medical Center, including four who are in critical condition, hospital officials said.
The university said in a statement that it is "profoundly shocked and saddened" by the incident.
"There are no words to adequately describe this level of loss. Our prayers are with all those impacted by this tragedy," the university said.
John Benfield, 69, of Newland, North Carolina, has been charged with two counts of vehicular homicide by recklessness and five counts of aggravated assault by vehicle by reckless, according to the district attorney general for Carter County.
The crash remains under investigation, authorities said.
"Our troopers are now working to determine exactly what happened," Major Roy Brown of the Tennessee Highway Patrol said during a press briefing on Wednesday. "We know the families and Milligan University deeply want answers, and we want to provide those answers, but it's our responsibility to ensure that we conduct a fair investigation thoroughly and provide facts based on that investigation."
Carter County District Attorney General Steven Finney said the driver is in custody and could face additional charges.
Finney described the cycling team as "elite."
"It's not a bunch of just club guys getting together to ride, they know what they're doing. They rode in a peloton," he said.
Waers said there are pastoral and counseling resources available on campus following the "tragic" incident.
"It is more important than ever right now that Milligan is a community gathered around Jesus, and we need Jesus deeply," Waers said during the press briefing. "We need to be gathered together. We need to help each other bear burdens that are too heavy for any one person to carry on their own, we need the comfort of Jesus, the peace of the Spirit, because this is too much."
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We’ll have to wait until more information is made available.
It is possible that this was the result of distracted driving. Many of the smaller local transportation companies tend to communicate with the driver as he is driving.
There will be messages from the Dispatcher, GPS updates, GPS disputes, Road Closure Alerts, and new destination addresses to look for while the driving is going on. What used to be instantly called ‘distracted driving’ some 15 years ago, can often be a job task expectation and requirement these days. The Driver is expected to multi-task on every shift.
Very sad. Bicycles always lose to cars.
That’s so tragic. Will pray for all involved and their loved ones.
What a loss for this country!
This comes on the heels of the case of a 30-year-old Slovakian man who was bicycling across America from San Diego to Savannah, Georgia. He made it safely across most of our country, and was killed, right before dawn, on Highway 280, near Salem, Alabama by a careless driver in a minivan. He would have crossed into Georgia within another couple of hours.
All you cyclists need to up your reflective strips and lighting for low light hours and up your bright colors for daylight. Choose your routes wisely.
“2 students dead, 7 others injured after driver strikes Tennessee university cycling team: Authorities”. Evidently John didn’t like bicycle riders?
1 is a distraction.
11 is intent.
Does this mean they rode in a large pack, taking over the entire lane of a road?
That would seem to be the case.
We have local cyclist teams here from the college and they do ride as a group and had A similar accident about 20 years ago..........
You're entertaining the notion that these cyclists could have done something to prevent this, which is obscene.
This happened at 8 am and there were at least nine cyclists in the group. What possible effect could reflective strips have had? You have exactly ZERO reason to believe lack of reflective gear or their choice of route had anything to do with this.
It's pathetic for someone who doesn't live the cycling lifestyle to sit behind a keyboard and preach at those who do.
I always thought this push to mix bikes w/vehicular traffic was reckless and irresponsible. Just begs for tragedy.
I worked with a guy who got killed on his bike. He was about 29 and just had his first kid who was less than a year old at the time. Terrible.
We have bike lanes here and when there is no bike lane, there’s is a sign that says “BICYCLES SHARE ROADWAY”.........
It's also sanctimonious and condescending.
“Does this mean they rode in a large pack, taking over the entire lane of a road?”
It means they rode in a line, with the rear rider’s front wheel less than 2 inches from the rider in front of them’s rear wheel.
That wasn’t me.................
Even without bikes, there are plenty of signs, controls, lane marking, and rules for vehicles but accidents among them still happen.
I'd say there's a better chance of someone surviving a collision between two vehicles than a vehicle and a bike, that's all.
Mixing bikes into traffic also seems to appear at the same time as those dangerous crosswalks that aren't even at an intersection.
We have lots of those as well, especially in the touristy areas.
Ironically, they were installed to help protect tourist pedestrians.
We had many instances of pedestrian tourists essentially jaywalking to cross the streets in the middle of a block to get to another tourist attraction or restaurant. Several would get killed or severely injured each year.
Then the DOT came up with these middle of the block crosswalks to help and it did to a small extent as fewer are killed and injured but it is not eliminated..............
11 is intent.
If he was a jihadist and this was a Christmas parade that might be more plausible.
A peloton of 11 bikes is going to occupy a few square feet.
At the 50mph speed limit on that curvy stretch of highway the car covers 73 feet a second.
Just a few seconds of eyes off the road is all it takes to create this tragedy.
He was arrested for crossing the center line and hitting two motorcycles and causing the crash of a bunch more as the bikes tried to veer out of the way or were hit by the original bikes hit.
It was a very interesting trial with lots of eye witnesses on both sides (drivers behind the truck, the bikers, etc.). The driver was no saint, but did not cause the crash. Lots of forensics proved it. The lead biker, drunk, had crossed the centerline by perhaps one-foot. It was really horrific with several dead, dismembered, etc. and the witness testimony describing it all. The truck driver may have been distracted with his soda, (and in my mind if he had been more attentive could have avoided him), but he wasn't guilty.
After he was released he was put on detention for overstaying a visa from some eastern European country and was to be deported.
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