Reagan Dougan Died With Her Four Children on I-95

Reagan Dougan and her four children died about 6 a.m. on April 6, 2025, when their rental Jeep burned on I-95 in McIntosh County. She was 27, and they had left Raleigh, North Carolina, in a Jeep Grand Cherokee bound for Florida.

Her husband, Christian Dougan, was already in Florida visiting family. He did not know they were on the road. The trip, he later said, was meant to surprise him.

He Did Not Know They Were Coming

Christian Dougan learned of the wreck on the morning of April 6. Sarah Stoltman, his stepmother, later wrote that he woke up to news that his wife and children had been in a crash on their way to meet him. Georgia State Patrol troopers notified him after they identified the dead.

The couple had been married three years and two weeks as of April 9, 2025. They had moved to Raleigh in 2024 for work. Reagan Dougan, a stay-at-home mother originally from Dunedin, Florida, filled the days around the children, their schools, and people her husband said he had never met.

She loved everything and everybody. She didn’t even know how to be mean. She had no idea. She was so sweet. I can’t even express how phenomenal a wife and mother she was. Words can’t do justice.

Christian Dougan, husband and father, four days after the crash

He said she took the children to schools and became close with their teachers. He said she would have him sit through birthday parties for families he did not know. The family had talked about buying a camper and already spent weekends in the mountains.

GSP first described the dead as two adults and three children, then corrected the count to a mother and four children. Their father named them as Carter, 9; Bentley, 4; Adelaide, 3; and Dawson, 2 months.

What Happened at Mile Marker 62

The crash was on southbound I-95 at mile marker 62 in McIntosh County, a rural run of interstate south of Savannah. Witnesses told Trooper Christopher Ashdown of the Georgia State Patrol that a Jeep was moving at a high rate of speed before it rear-ended a white Infiniti in the far-right lane.

The Jeep then struck the center guardrail and caught fire. Ashdown said a witness who had been passed by the SUV saw an explosion a short time later. Troopers found the Jeep fully involved when they arrived. All five people inside were pronounced dead at the scene. Southbound I-95 stayed closed for four hours.

THE MORNING ON I-95

1. April 6, 2025, about 6 a.m.: The rental Jeep rear-ends an Infiniti on I-95 south at mile marker 62, then hits the center guardrail and burns.
2. Sunday morning: Troopers close southbound I-95 for four hours and find five people dead in the Jeep.
3. Sunday afternoon: Family members in North Carolina confirm the Dougans lived in Raleigh and that Reagan Dougan was driving to Florida.
4. April 7, 2025: A GoFundMe goes up to move the five from Georgia to a burial in Florida.
5. April 10, 2025: Christian Dougan describes the trip as a surprise he did not know was coming.

The Infiniti’s driver, a Long County resident, was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. Ashdown said the Jeep had been rented in Raleigh. GSP called the first findings preliminary and said the cause was under investigation. No public charging announcement followed in the months after the wreck.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The dead: Reagan Dougan, 27, and her four children were killed in the Jeep, and troopers pronounced them dead at the scene.
• The sequence: A southbound rear-end at mile marker 62 was followed by a guardrail strike and a fire that engulfed the SUV.
• The other car: The Infiniti driver survived and was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Speed: A witness described a high rate of speed, but GSP did not release a measured speed for the Jeep.
• Ignition: Ashdown tied the fire to the force of the impact; no public mechanical report has spelled out what burned first.
• A legal close: The patrol’s cause finding and any charging decision were not released in public notices after April 2025.

Ashdown put the fire in blunt terms after looking at the wreckage.

Seeing how hard the impact was obviously caused the SUV to ignite.

Christopher Ashdown, Georgia State Trooper, at the McIntosh County scene

The Jeep Burned After It Hit the Guardrail

Rear-end crashes on interstates are common. Fires that kill everyone in the striking vehicle are not. NHTSA’s 2024 fatal-crash files show fire in 3.8% of fatal-crash vehicles, 2,107 of 56,011. Passenger cars posted 4.3% (736 of 17,153). Light trucks, the class that includes a Jeep Grand Cherokee, posted 3.7% (915 of 25,052).

FIRE IN FATAL U.S. CRASHES, 2024

Those shares count vehicles, not people. Five deaths in one burning SUV still sit inside a thin slice of deadly wrecks. NFPA research on fires from 2018 through 2022 found passenger vehicles accounted for 380 civilian deaths a year, and that 47% of passenger-car fire deaths involved a collision or an overturn.

Entrapment is the other half of that math. A Jeep that has hit a car, crossed toward the median, and come to rest against a guardrail leaves little time if the cabin lights. Dawson was 2 months old. Adelaide was 3. Bentley was 4. Carter was 9. None of them got out.

Carter, Bentley, Adelaide and Dawson

Their father talked about them four days after the fire, in the flat detail of a parent who still had their habits in his mouth. Carter played hockey for the Ankle Breakers in the Polar Hurricanes House League, spent hours in Fortnite, and ate oranges. His favorite player was Victor Hedman, the Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman.

Christian Dougan called Bentley “Bentley Boo” and “the most spirited young man.” The boy preferred muck boots to tennis shoes, listened to Dr. Seuss at night, and fell asleep to a children’s monster-truck show. Adelaide, the only daughter, lived on swing sets and wore Little Mermaid slippers she treated like fins. She played with toy dinosaurs, kept a favorite pink cup, and said “Wuv you” before she could land the L.

FOUR LIVES IN THE JEEP

• Carter, 9: He played house-league hockey in Raleigh, loved Fortnite and oranges, and wore Hedman’s Lightning game as a favorite.
• Bentley, 4: He lit rooms when he walked in, lived in muck boots, and went to sleep with Dr. Seuss and monster trucks.
• Adelaide, 3: She swung while her father smoked barbecue wings, held his finger wherever he went, and got the words “Love you” out once.
• Dawson, 2 months: His father called him the most docile of the four, a baby who cooed and almost never screamed.

Dawson’s birth had given Reagan Dougan something she had not managed with the first three pregnancies: she could breastfeed. Christian Dougan said she treated that as her proudest work. He would wake in the night to a pump and find her eating animal crackers and drinking Dr. Pepper. Adelaide’s one clean “Love you” had already made him sad, he said, because he had not wanted the baby version to end.

Federal Files Count 10 Deadly I-95 Crashes Here

McIntosh County is small, marshy, and split by I-95 as the road runs toward Florida. Federal fatal-crash files for 2020 through 2024 already counted 10 deadly wrecks on I-95 in that county. The Dougan fire came later, in April 2025, on the same southbound pavement at mile marker 62.

Georgia’s own crash dashboard, covering 2021 through 2025, lists 7,789 fatal crashes and 8,403 deaths statewide, and it records 1,248 fatal crashes in 2025. Those are state totals, not a verdict on one milepost. They do show how ordinary a deadly morning on a Georgia interstate can look in a spreadsheet, and how little a rural county has to absorb five deaths at once.

GEORGIA AND THIS STRETCH OF I-95

• McIntosh I-95, 2020-2024: Federal fatal-crash files count 10 deadly wrecks on this county’s stretch of the interstate.
• Georgia, 2025: The state dashboard records 1,248 fatal crashes across all public roads.
• This scene: Southbound I-95 at mile marker 62 was closed for four hours after the Jeep burned.

This wreck did not involve a tractor-trailer. It was a passenger Jeep and an Infiniti, at an hour when the road is fast and thin on traffic, with the nearest large trauma center a drive away in Savannah or Brunswick. The people who died were not from McIntosh County. They were passing through it in the dark, on the main north-south spine between the Carolinas and Florida.

Polar Ice and a Farewell in Florida

By Monday, April 7, a fundraiser was live under Christian Dougan’s name. Stoltman wrote it so he would not have to, and she named the hard cost: moving five people from Georgia to a resting place in Florida. The goal was $20,000. It took in more than $30,000 in 24 hours, passed $50,000 by the night of April 8, and held more than $90,000 by the afternoon of April 10.

The celebration-of-life fund for burial costs is where that money was asked for. Christian Dougan called the response breathtaking. “What do you say in words other than thank you because now they can have more than what I could’ve given them,” he said. “There’s no words other than I’m thankful.”

Polar Ice, the Raleigh-area skating program where the family had skated and coached, put a statement on its site and its Facebook page.

The Dougan family were deeply valued members of our skating community at Polar Ice, participating and coaching in our Learn to Skate, Play and League programs. Words cannot adequately express our sincere condolences during this difficult time; it is truly unimaginable to comprehend the extent of this loss.

Polar Ice, statement on the family

He asked for privacy, respect, and love while he planned the memorials. The children never made it to Florida. The husband they meant to surprise was the one who had to bring them the rest of the way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where Did the April 2025 I-95 Crash Happen in Georgia?

The wreck was on southbound I-95 at mile marker 62 in McIntosh County, a coastal county whose seat is Darien. Some accounts placed it near Exit 67 at South Newport, a few miles north of that marker, on a three-lane southbound run through marsh country.

Did Anyone in the Second Car Survive the Crash?

Yes. The Infiniti’s driver, from neighboring Long County, was taken to Southeast Regional Health System in Brunswick with injuries described as not life-threatening. No other injuries were reported in that car.

How Does NHTSA Record a Fatal Crash?

A crash enters the Fatality Analysis Reporting System only if it happens on a public trafficway and causes the death within 30 days of a crash of a vehicle occupant or a person outside the vehicle. State analysts code the files from police reports, death certificates, and related records.

How Do You Request an Official Georgia Crash Report?

Georgia DOT stores crash reports in the GEARS system and sells copies through BuyCrash, or by mail on a GDOT request form. The department’s crash-reporting desk lists customer support at 1-866-215-2771 for reports that do not appear in the portal.