When a motorcycle hit a Cobb Community Transit bus Wednesday, it burst into flames.
The bus driver jumped out and started screaming for help, and at least two men dashed from a nearby bus stop to try to save the man on the motorcycle. They dragged his body to the edge of the road, took their jackets off and tried to put out the flames.
Mattie Akinlosose, who witnessed it all from her home at the intersection of South Marietta Parkway and Aviation Road, called 911.
“His body was just laying there smoking,” she said. “We could see the man was just burning.”
The motorcyclist, identified late Wednesday as 27-year-old Charles Ripley Jr. of Marietta, died at the scene.
Marietta police Officer David Baldwin said the crash happened around 1:30 p.m., when the bus, traveling west on South Marietta Boulevard, made a left into the transit depot on Aviation Road. The motorcycle, headed east on South Marietta, collided with its right rear.
The bus driver, 47-year old Maxine Kindall of Marietta, was taken to the hospital “for complaint of injury,” Baldwin said. There were no other passengers on the bus.
Baldwin did not know which vehicle had the right of way at the time of the crash. He said investigators were interviewing several witnesses. Any additional witnesses are asked to contact Officer Nick Serkadakis at 770-794-5364.
Baldwin said the stretch of South Marietta Parkway where the crash happened sees a lot of vehicle and pedestrian traffic — and, in the past few years, “a number of fatalities and serious injury wrecks.”
Akinlosose knows that all too well.
“We just need to pray for the family,” she said. “We need to pray for them. This is the third one I’ve seen right in front of my door.”
—Staff writer Mike Morris contributed to this article.
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