An influencer with over 500,000 social media followers and a U.S. Marine aged 20 lost their lives after a fatal head-on collision on Interstate 85 due to one of the vehicles traveling the wrong way, according to a preliminary crash report.
Online social media personality Alyshia Rushing, aged 26, from Tuskegee known as “Mama A,” and Landon Dunn, aged 20, from Greenville, were declared dead at the accident scene of the August 22 wreck, police said.
Montgomery police were dispatched at 2:15 a.m. to the southbound lanes of I-85 between the Taylor Road and Chantilly Parkway exits, Lt. Tina McGriff, a police spokeswoman, said. Rushing, driving a 2013 Kia Sorento, and Dunn, driving a 2015 Toyota Tacoma, were found dead at the accident scene. A female passenger in Rushing’s car was rushed to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. According to the preliminary crash report released to WSFA 12 News, Rushing’s SUV was found to have crashed in the southbound lanes in the opposite direction at around 2 a.m., causing a head-on collision with Dunn’s pickup. No information is available about the speeds of the two vehicles involved in the accident, but as shown in the report’s diagram, both vehicles collided in the center lane. Autopsies and toxicology testing of both drivers are pending at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, the report said.
Investigators did not provide any reason for Rushing to enter the interstate in the wrong direction. Montgomery Police are investigating the crash.
Rushing was an influencer with nearly 540,000 TikTok followers, where she posted content regarding her life as a mother with four children: Karter, Raelynn, Zoey, and Aydan. A fundraiser set up for her said that her children had suffered a loss of their mother and life changes following her death. Her last TikTok video was uploaded the day before the accident. According to posts from Dunn’s family, Dunn was returning from North Carolina to Greenville to see family members.
Dunn and Rushing were colleagues and friends and had served in the Marine Corps for about a year and a half; a fellow Marine set up a fundraiser for Dunn’s family.
Fundraising for both families has been initiated.
