A forty-three-year-old Summerville woman and a sixty-five-year-old Trion man passed away after an accident on Thursday morning on Highway 27 in Rock Spring.  The Georgia State Patrol Post in LaFayette worked the accident which took place shortly after 9 AM near the intersection of Fields Drive and Highway 27.

According to a preliminary report, sixty-five-year-old Jerry Lynn Payne of Trion was traveling south in a 2012 GMC Terrain when, for unknown reasons, Payne’s vehicle crossed all lanes into the northbound lanes and crashed head-on into a 2015 Cadillac SRX driven by Tonya-Joan Marie Overbay.

Payne was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident by the Walker County Coroner.  Overbay was transported to a Chattanooga hospital where she later succumbed to her injuries.

A passenger in Payne’s vehicle, nineteen-year-old Eli Lyons of Trion is in critical condition at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga.

The accident remains under investigation by the Georgia State Patrol.