A South Carolina woman fell to her death from a bridge after she tried to help a victim of a truck crash that took place at the intersection of Interstate 385 early Saturday, the police have revealed.
Jessica Nicole Smith, 29, was a passenger of a car that encountered the wreckage at the bridge. She proceeded to get out of the car and went to check to see if there were any victims in the cab of the truck, according to Fox News.
Smith then bent over the bridge to call out for the victims after she found no one in the cab.
"It is believed she heard a voice, placed one leg over the bridge, and then another, thinking the ground was close," Coroner Parks Evans said in a statement, according to NBC News.
"However, she fell 23 feet to the base of the bridge and died," he added. A man who was in the truck also plunged down from the bridge but was able to survive, Evan said.
Smith, who is a trained nursing assistant, leaves behind her nine-year-old son. Hope Smith, Jessica's sister, said her family was "heartbroken and empty" following the death of her sister and pledged that she and her husband will care for Smith's child.
"He's going to be OK, because I'm going to make sure of that, but it's going to be tough growing up from the age of nine without your mom. I couldn't imagine that," Jessica said, according to the Daily Mail UK.
