WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — Two Nashville men were hospitalized after a high-speed chase and radical rollover crash on Interstate 840.
And when the smoke cleared, Williamson County deputies recovered lots of drugs and guns.
The chase began early Sunday morning in Cool Springs off I-65 South, which is when a deputy spotted a car driving well under the speed limit and not maintaining its lane.
When the deputy went to pull over the vehicle, the car sped away.
Within moments, the car was traveling at speeds approaching 120 mph before it eventually entered I-840 westbound.
Before deputies could catch up, the car lost control, going airborne and rolling multiple times.
The passenger, 24-year-old Cory Preston, was ejected and landed many yards away from the smoking vehicle.
Amazingly, the badly-injured man was able to stand and obey an officer’s commands to surrender.
Body cam video shows the officers ordering the obviously injured man down the berm to the side of the road. Once he got to the roadside, he was handcuffed, at that moment, the officer realized how badly hurt he was and immediately called for medics.
The driver, Kevin Cao, was also badly hurt. The collision was so ferocious that he was tossed into the back seat of the crumpled Nissan.
Deputies attempted to break the vehicle glass and open the car, but the metal is too badly mangled.
On the body cam video, Cao can be heard talking to the deputy and asking if his friend is okay.
While medics attended to Preston, fire crews arrived and used the jaws of life to extricate the injured driver.
Both men were taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for treatment.
When officers inspected the car, they found four pounds of marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, cocaine, three handguns and an assault-style rifle.
When they are released from the hospital, the men will be charged with a number of felonies, including drug possession for resale and reckless endangerment
News 2 looked for prior criminal histories on the men and they have no arrest records in Metro Nashville, Williamson or Maury counties.
