Police are investigating after a new video appears to show a driver video-streaming herself live on TikTok the moment she fatally struck a man crossing the street in Zion Monday evening.
The Zion Fire Rescue Department and Zion Police Department 5:46 p.m. Monday to the area of 33rd Street and Sheridan Road in Zion for a vehicle crash with injuries.
First responders arrived and found a crash involving a vehicle and a pedestrian.
Officers who were first on scene began performing CPR on the victim, who was unconscious and not breathing, according to fire department radio traffic.
Paramedics took over lifesaving measures and rushed the victim to Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan.
Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek identified him Tuesday as Darren Lucas, 59, of Beach Park, and said he was pronounced dead in the emergency room.
An autopsy performed on Lucas on Tuesday showed he died as a result of blunt force injuries from the collision.
The Lake County Major Crash Assistance Team (MCAT) responded to conduct the crash reconstruction and investigation.
Officers shut down Sheridan Road between 31st Street and 33rd Street while investigators worked at the scene.
Zion Police Department Lt. Paul Kehrli said a 2015 Ford utility vehicle was traveling on Sheridan Road when it struck Lucas.
Lucas was attempting to cross Sheridan Road just south of 33rd Street when he was hit.
The driver of the Ford, a 43-year-old Zion woman, remained at the scene, called 911 and has been cooperating fully with the investigation, Kehrli said Tuesday.
Kehrli said drugs and alcohol are not believed to be factors in the crash but laboratory results are pending.
A screen recording of a TikTok live video was published on TikTok on Friday morning and showed user “Tea_Tyme_3,” who is a content creator with TikTok, YouTube and Instagram accounts with thousands of followers, driving a car when she hit a person.
The woman was looking at her phone when she then glanced back at the road and suddenly screamed as a loud thud could be heard.
“F–k, f–k, f–k,” she said as a child passenger in the car could be heard asking, “What was that?” Another person could be heard asking if the woman was okay.
“I just hit somebody,” she said before disconnecting from the live stream.
The video published Friday on TikTok was a screen recording of the TikTok live stream, which was originally streamed to the platform on Monday when the crash occurred.
The content creator involved has since changed her TikTok account to private and deleted her bio section, which had referenced her being in Zion, Illinois.
The Zion Police Department told Lake and McHenry County Scanner on Friday morning that they would be looking into the newly surfaced video.
The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office said Friday afternoon that they have been made aware of the video but they cannot comment further due to the pending investigation.
Chris King, Lucas’ son-in-law, said his family has not received any information yet from investigators regarding the report that the driver may have been livestreaming when the incident occurred.
“Even then, we hold our loss tighter to our hearts, and will continue to pray for what the driver must be going through. Honestly we are trying to find our ways to live, without someone we cherished so much,” King said.
“The hardest part is the mother in law lost the most, and only with lots of time, counseling, and love will she be able to find her way to move forward, without her best friend, her love, and honestly her life. She did so much for him, and to see him erased, is unfathomable,” he added.
King said his family is blessed to have the support of the community.
“He played a great role in [us] finding humor when humor is needed,” King said.
“I personally just lost a great friend, while so many lost much more, hope… hope that if this guy can make people happy, no matter their background or affiliation, at his own expense at times. But we loved him for who he was, and the light that he shone on our lives,” King said.
King described Lucas as the “nicest guy I’ve known” and said his father-in-law worked at the former Piggly Wiggly, which is now Torres Fresh Market, across the street from where he was struck by the vehicle.
A user on Reddit posted a thread on Friday saying that they were watching the live stream of user “Tea_Tyme_3” at the time of the crash, calling it “haunting.”
“So, there’s a creator I’ve followed for years on TikTok. She goes live all the time chatting with her viewers, driving around, acting like she’s got her own reality show happening 24/7. I usually don’t think much of it. Tons of people go live while doing mundane stuff,” the Reddit user said.
“She was driving while talking to everyone in the chat responding to comments, looking at the screen way too much. You could clearly tell she wasn’t paying attention to the road. I remember thinking, ‘Girl please just focus, this is not safe,'” the user said.
“Then suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, there was this loud thud like the car hit something solid. Her phone jerked, the camera shook, and then she just froze. The look on her face was pure shock. She put the phone down, opened the door, and got out. People in the chat were confused, asking what happened. And then the live just ended,” the Reddit user said.
“Later, I kept checking her page because I just… knew something horrible happened. Sure enough, news stories started popping up: she had hit a pedestrian a man and he died from his injuries. A man died because she wanted attention from a livestream,” the Reddit user added.
No citations or charges have been announced yet and the investigation remains ongoing by MCAT.