Department of Safety & Homeland Security
Bill Gibbons, Commissioner

Name: Jeffrey Allen Marvin
Age: 18
Date of Crash: 6/15/1997
Date of Death: 6/16/1997
Home Town/City: Friendship
County of Fatal Crash: Madison
Roadway of Fatal Crash: Keith Short Bypass, US Hwy 45

The day of the crash was Father's Day. My wife and I had been to my uncles funeral and Jeff went alone in his pick-up truck. He had plans seperate from those of my wife and I following the funeral. We were still with family at my uncle's home when Jeff left. We did not find out that he had been hit by a drunk driver until we got home and saw all the messages flashing on the answering machine. When we got to Jackson General Hospital, we could see Jeff lying in the neuro-intensive care unit suffering a coma from severe brain trauma. We learned from the JPD that Jeff had pulled onto the U.S.45 by-pass in front of Walmart when a drunk driver going the same way ran over him and left the scene. Jeff apparently was not wearing his seat belt(the last thing we told him to do before he left) and had been thrown out of his truck. The other driver stopped momentarily according to witnesses and then fled the scene. He was arrested a short time later thanks to a witness who followed him to his residence and used his cell phone to call the police. We donated Jeff's organs so that others might live. We got to know the man who received Jeff's lung and became good friends with him until his death of heart failure 5 years later.