LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – The wreck scene was somber.  The pictures tell of an horrific head-on crash.  However, the two men injured in the mishap survived and continue recovering this morning following the Christmas Eve wreck.

Two La Follette men, driving separate vehicles, were injured Tuesday morning when their vehicles went head-to-head in a grinding collision in front of La Follette Middle School on East Central Avenue.  Just before daybreak is when Trooper James Raines with the Tennessee Highway Patrol details that 37-year Joey N. Jones veered all the way across the five-lane highway in his 2008 Ford Escape striking 68-year old Scott Smith’s westbound 2006 Nissan Frontier head-on.  Both vehicles ended up in front of LMS at the corner of East Central (Hwy 63) and Foothills Drive in the right La Follette bound lane.

Each man was trapped in their respective vehicles with Smith suffering non-life threatening injuries.  Jones, however, was flown to a Knoxville hospital by way of a med-chopper.  One hospital official in the Trauma Surgical IC Unit said to WLAF this morning, “Joey’s doin’ pretty good right now.  He’s in stable condition, and his care is deescalating.”

Raines writes that Jones was not wearing a seatbelt.  However, Smith was wearing a seatbelt.  Charges are pending against Jones for due care, lane use and suspended drivers license.  (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 12/26/2019-7AM-PHOTOS COURTESY OF WLAF’S CHARLIE HUTSON)