Culkin volunteer firefighter Andrew Penley directs traffic through the scene of a three-car wreck on Interstate 20 Sunday night. (BRIAN LODEN The Vicksburg Post)

[1/17/05]One man was killed and four other people were injured in a three-car wreck Sunday night after one vehicle drove the wrong way on Interstate 20 for about six miles before crashing near Clay Street.

Corey Rawlings, 23, 100 Dove Road, was westbound in the eastbound lanes when his 1979 Buick Electra collided head-on with a 2003 Dodge Durango driven by Rosa Branch, 53, of Jackson, Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman James Walker said.

“This car just came out of nowhere,” said a woman who was a passenger in a car that had been pulled over by Trooper Jason Ginn.

The woman, who along with the driver and Ginn saw the wreck, declined to give her name.

“I heard a horn and I heard brakes squealing,” Ginn said.

“It was surreal to see it happen and horrifying,” he said.

Mr. Rawlings died at the scene, Warren County Coroner John Thomason said.

A third car, a Dodge Stratus driven by Christopher Cooper, 27, of Ridgeland, drove into a ditch off the right shoulder of the highway, trying to avoid the wreck.

Branch, her passenger, Jesse Butler, 58, and Cooper and his wife, Sheila, 25, were taken to River Region Medical Center. All were treated and released, hospital spokesman Diane Gawronski said.

LaTonya Meekins, Rawlings’ sister with whom he was living, said this morning that she believed her brother was confused about the highway.

“He’d been back for only a week, and he didn’t know the area very well,” she said.

She said her brother had returned to Vicksburg from Woodville and “was looking for a job and trying to get on his feet.”

Law enforcement officers believe Mr. Rawlings was confused and believed he was traveling on U.S. 80 instead of the interstate.

He drove on the interstate for about six miles before hitting the oncoming Durango several hundred yards east of the Clay Street exit at 9:04 p.m.

The fatal wreck was the first in Warren County this year.

Autopsy results for Mr. Rawlings are pending, Thomason said.

Mr. Rawlings’ body will be re-leased to Dillon-Chisley Funeral Home after the autopsy, Thomason said.