LAKE CITY, S.C. — The Lake City community will come together in prayer as several football players and a Florence County coach continue to receive treatment at area hospitals following an Orangeburg County crash.
The city posted on Facebook that residents can meet at the Lake City High School football field at 8 p.m. on Sunday to pray for Coach Ronald Baker as well as Antwin Jones, Blayne Edwards, Andre McFadden-Pressley and Torrance Wilson.
The event follows a crash involving a tractor-trailer and the mini-bus four students and a coach were traveling in as they left a football camp at South Carolina State University. The South Carolina Highway Patrol said that the crash happened around 1 p.m. on Thursday on U.S. 301. That's where a westbound tractor-trailer on Bonner Avenue collided with the bus, officials said.
The coach was taken by helicopter to Prisma Health Richland Hospital in Columbia, and the students were taken to other local hospitals.
A spokesperson for Florence County School District 3 said on Friday afternoon that the coach was still in the hospital in Columbia, and one of the students had been transferred to a hospital in Charleston. He said he was not authorized to provide information on their conditions.
Authorities with the South Carolina Highway Patrol said it was too soon to suggest who was at fault in the crash since troopers had not yet filed any charges.
In the meantime, Lake City is asking the community to "flood the football field with prayer warriors" on Sunday as the victims of the crash begin their recovery.