Man charged after Wake County bridge crash kills 13-year-old

Joshua Phillip Lewis, 36, was charged after a wreck on eastbound Interstate 540 in Wake County killed 13-year-old Calvin James Cahoon of Elon. The case has left a family and school community mourning a rising eighth grader at Western Alamance Middle School while investigators continue to examine how the pickup left the road near the Neuse River Bridge.

The crash happened around 9:45 a.m. Saturday, June 20, near U.S. 401, when a 2008 Ford F-350 Super Duty pickup and a 2017 Dodge Charger were both traveling eastbound on I-540. Authorities say the pickup suffered a blown tire, veered off the roadway, dropped down an embankment between two I-540 bridges, overturned and came to rest on its roof.

Cahoon was a passenger in the pickup and died at the scene. The driver, identified as Lewis, was injured and taken to WakeMed. Lewis was later charged with misdemeanor death by vehicle and unsafe tires, two charges that place the focus on whether the tire condition and the resulting crash meet the state’s legal standard for criminal liability.

Under North Carolina law, misdemeanor death by vehicle applies when a driver unintentionally causes a death while violating a traffic law or ordinance, and that violation is the proximate cause of the death. In this case, the charge follows a fatal sequence that began with the tire blowout and ended with the truck on its roof in the embankment below the highway bridges.

Cahoon’s death has triggered grief in Alamance County and beyond. Western Alamance Middle School Athletic Boosters described him as a talented football player, wrestler and outstanding student. An obituary for Calvin James Cahoon said he died June 20 and was a rising eighth grader at Western Alamance Middle School.

The wreck also shut down one direction of I-540 for hours as emergency crews worked the scene near the Neuse River Bridge. The investigation remains ongoing, with the crash now carrying both a criminal case and a painful reminder of how quickly a vehicle failure on a busy county highway can turn fatal.