Elon teenager, Western Alamance student killed in Wake County crash

Calvin James Cahoon, a 13-year-old from Elon and a rising eighth grader at Western Alamance Middle School, was killed Saturday morning in a crash on Interstate 540 East near the Neuse River Bridge in Wake County.

North Carolina State Highway Patrol troopers said a Ford F-350 suffered a tire blowout, then the driver lost control, sideswiped another vehicle, struck a guardrail and flipped down an embankment. The wreck shut down lanes on I-540 East for several hours.

ABC11 identified the driver of the truck as 36-year-old Joshua Phillip Lewis and said the vehicle was a 2008 Ford F-350 Super Duty. Lewis was charged with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle and unsafe tires. The other vehicle involved was a 2017 Dodge Charger driven by 67-year-old Ulysses Harris.

For Alamance County, the loss lands far from the highway but close to home. Cahoon lived in Elon, was headed into his middle school years at Western Alamance, and his death leaves a sudden void in a school community that knows him as one of its own.

A Legacy obituary for Calvin James Cahoon of Elon says he died June 20, 2026, from injuries sustained in a tragic automobile accident. The obituary lists his birth date as Jan. 31, 2013, and says burial was scheduled for June 26 at Magnolia Cemetery in Elon.

The crash remains under investigation. Even with the collision taking place in Wake County, the impact is being felt in Elon and across Alamance County, where Cahoon’s family, classmates and neighbors are now facing the loss of a child in the middle of summer.