A candlelight vigil will be held Tuesday night for a popular personal trainer killed in a weekend car wreck in northwest Atlanta.
Kanye Burton was driving a 2004 Nissan Maxima northbound on Marietta Street “at a high rate of speed” shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday, Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones said.
“Several witnesses stated that the vehicle passed them and then began to lose control,” Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an e-mail.
“The vehicle began to slide sideways across the road, leaving approximately 300 feet of skid marks on the road, and up into an embankment near the CSX railroad tracks on Marietta Street,” Jones said. “The vehicle hit the embankment and then began to flip several times, ejecting the driver from the vehicle.”
Burton, 39, “sustained what appeared to be minor injuries to the head and body,” Jones said, and was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.
“Upon arriving at the hospital, the driver was pronounced dead from his injuries,” Jones said.
The wreck was one of three fatal crashes in metro Atlanta during a nine-hour period Saturday.
Burton was a personal trainer at Universal Fitness in Atlanta. According to the company’s website, the Douglas County native had been a personal trainer for 14 years, and had worked with musicians Akon, T.I. and Jazzy Pha as well as several NFL players.
Burton had also organized several youth fitness programs, according to the website.
The funeral for Burton will be at noon Saturday at New Mountain Top Baptist Church in Winston with burial at Mt. Harmony Memorial Gardens in Mableton.
A candlelight vigil is planned for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Universal Fitness on Wheeler Street in Atlanta.
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