The deaths came hours apart as state investigators reviewed crashes in College Park and Walton County.
ATLANTA, GA — Two highway workers were killed Thursday in separate crashes in the metro Atlanta area, including a Georgia Department of Transportation contractor struck on Interstate 85 near the airport and a construction worker hit on State Route 81 in Walton County.
The deaths drew renewed attention to the danger faced by people working beside fast-moving traffic. State and local officials said one crash involved a driver who left I-85 and struck two workers in College Park. The other involved a 16-year-old driver who hit a worker taking measurements in a Walton County work zone.
The College Park crash happened just after 3 p.m. Thursday on I-85 north near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Georgia State Patrol said two landscape workers were in the grass gore area between the northbound collector-distributor lanes and ramps to North Inner Loop Road when a white Chevrolet Malibu left the roadway to the right and hit them. Both workers were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the worker who died as 37-year-old Celestino Pora-Carrillo. The other worker remained hospitalized with serious, life-threatening injuries. Georgia Department of Transportation officials said the two men were contractors working for the state agency. A driver who initially left the scene later returned and identified himself to College Park police, investigators said.
Authorities said the College Park driver was taken into custody while charges were pending. The worker who survived had not been publicly identified as of the latest reports, and officials also had not released the driver’s name. The crash blocked traffic near one of the region’s busiest travel corridors for several hours, with the interstate reopening shortly before 6:30 p.m. Investigators said the workers were not in a travel lane when they were hit. The location, near airport ramps and merging traffic, is a heavily used stretch of I-85 that carries commuters, airport travelers and commercial vehicles through south metro Atlanta. Val Watson, a driver who spoke with Channel 2 Action News, said the crash was a reminder that people often focus only on getting where they are going. “That’s exactly where I was headed to go home,” Watson said.
Earlier Thursday, another worker was killed in Walton County. The crash happened on State Route 81 just north of Ozora Church Road in unincorporated Loganville. Georgia State Patrol said a 16-year-old driving an Acura MDX hit 46-year-old Vipulkumar Patel while Patel was taking measurements in the roadway. Patel was pronounced dead at the scene. The teen driver was not hurt. Officials did not say whether charges had been filed in that crash. The Walton County death and the College Park death made Thursday a deadly day for roadside and highway work crews around Atlanta. Local reports said the two fatal crashes came less than three weeks after a GDOT worker was hit and killed on Ga. 400 while installing signs.
The crashes added to a broader discussion among safety officials and families of roadside workers about speed, distracted driving and Georgia’s move-over law. The law requires drivers to move over one lane for emergency, transportation, utility and tow vehicles stopped on a highway for work when it is safe to do so. If traffic makes that unsafe, drivers must slow below the speed limit and be ready to stop. Georgia passed the law in 2003 after deaths involving construction workers and emergency responders. Lawmakers later updated it to include utility linemen. Maurice Raines, deputy director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, said enforcement alone cannot prevent every dangerous choice near work crews. “We cannot do it alone,” Raines said, referring to the limits of police efforts on busy roads.
Family members of workers killed in earlier roadside crashes said the deaths leave lasting damage beyond the crash scene. Wilson Fuller, whose brother Toby Bowden was killed in 2023 after responding to a crash on I-85 in Coweta County, said the impact reaches spouses, children and coworkers. “That’s a call that you never want to get,” Fuller said. Rachel Galotti, vice president of Nathan’s Driving School, said the risk is especially stark when workers are outside vehicles and close to traffic. “It’s even worse, I think, when someone’s just doing their job, and they’re not even in a car,” Galotti said. She said vehicles moving at highway speeds cover long distances in seconds, leaving workers with little protection when a driver drifts from the road.
State investigators were continuing to review both Thursday crashes. In College Park, Georgia State Patrol said the driver was in custody and charges were pending. In Walton County, officials had not announced charges against the teen driver. The next updates are expected from state investigators as crash reports are completed and charging decisions are made.
Author note: Last updated June 7, 2026.