Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort is a beautiful establishment in Mount Pleasant, MI, where many visitors look forward to having a great time. However, on one night in early April, a group of casino visitors were having anything but fun when they were involved in an unexpected accident.
5 tourists on their way to Soaring Eagle Casino were involved in a serious car crash, which occurred on April 3, 2015. The minivan taxi that they rode in collided with another vehicle, which caused the death of a 26-year-old passenger from the other vehicle, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The deceased passenger, Cody Johnson, was a hardworking father from Virginia.
The 28-year-old Mount Pleasant taxi driver was evidently not as fault, as there were witnesses available to attest to the fact that the driver of the other vehicle was, in fact, at fault. The driver of the other vehicle, a green pickup truck, a 31-year-old male, who is also from Virginia, was seen driving right through a blinking red light without stopping.
His failure to stop resulted in the taxi driver crashing into his vehicle, causing the passenger’s death. The accident occurred at approximately 1:47 a.m., at the intersection of South Summerton and East Broadway near Mount Pleasant in Isabella County, which isn’t far from Soaring Eagle Casino.
The taxi driver was transporting 5 passengers, a 22-year-old female, two 24-year-old females, one 22-year-old male, and a male in his fifties, to the casino. None of the taxi passengers were fatally injured, although none were wearing seatbelts. They were all transported to a nearby medical center, McLaren Central Michigan Hospital, for the treatment of various injuries.
So far, it does not appear that alcohol played a role in the accident, although authorities have not yet finished conducting their investigations. It has not been determined why the 31-year-old Virginia male decided to ignore the blinking red light, which was obviously an indication for him to stop.
The police are hoping that their continued investigations will reveal why the driver of the pickup truck ignored the blinking red light. This tragedy could have been totally avoided if only the man had stopped, and his friend, Johnson, would have still been alive.
Johnson had evidently traveled from Virginia to help his friend, the driver of the green pickup truck, relocate to Mount Pleasant from Virginia. Johnson was described by his mother, who contacted the local news in Michigan, as being kind-hearted and always willing to do anything he could to help out other people.
