I-85 reopens after fatal Gaston County truck crash; cause still unknown

Gaston County paramedics confirmed the death and said another person was taken to a hospital. WSOC reported that the hospitalized person had serious injuries; WBTV reported that the person was expected to survive. Those accounts are compatible: an expectation of survival does not mean the injuries were minor.⁠1⁠3

The collision happened early Monday, October 26, 2026, on I-85 North just past Exit 23 for McAdenville Road, near McAdenville, North Carolina. Gastonia police described it as a “major” crash. Neither person was identified in the available reporting, which also did not establish their roles in the vehicles.⁠1⁠2⁠3

The confirmed casualties supersede the uncertainty in the first WBTV account, which said police had not immediately confirmed injuries or deaths. That early absence of confirmation was not a finding that nobody had been hurt. The later reports establish a fatal collision, not simply a prolonged traffic disruption.⁠1⁠3

The exact collision time remains unsettled. In their October 26 reports, WBTV placed it around 2:45 a.m., while WSOC said just after 2:30 a.m. Both are approximate accounts of the same early-morning crash; neither provides an independently established minute at which it occurred.⁠1⁠3

WSOC described the northbound shutdown as lasting nearly seven hours. Given the approximate crash times and reopening around 9 a.m., the safest description is roughly six to seven hours—not an exact seven-hour closure. Either way, the response extended from the overnight hours into rush hour.⁠1⁠3

A large group of first responders assembled near the Exit 23 ramps. Traffic cameras showed a boom truck helping clear the wreckage, according to WBTV. The scale of that cleanup was visible even without an official explanation of how the trucks came to collide.⁠1

Aftermath photographs showed one truck with heavy crash damage and apparent fire damage. That observation does not establish when a fire began, whether it preceded or followed the collision, or whether it contributed to the death. Officials had not explained the cause of the crash.⁠1

WCNC also reported that one truck struck and knocked over the concrete median. That is a reported part of the wreck, but not a settled reconstruction: the available account does not establish how the median impact fit into the sequence of the collision.⁠2

By 6:30 a.m., northbound traffic was backed up about four miles, according to the initial WBTV report. That measurement describes the queue at a particular point in the morning, not its maximum length or conditions after the lanes reopened.⁠1

The disruption also reached drivers heading south. The left southbound lane was closed during the response, and traffic moved slowly through the area. WSOC reported onlooker delays during the morning commute, so the effects were not confined to the fully closed northbound side.⁠1⁠3

While northbound traffic was stopped, Gastonia police warned that traffic “will only get worse” through rush hour and that “rush hour will be messy,” WBTV reported. Those were warnings during the closure, not assessments of conditions after reopening.⁠1

A few law-enforcement vehicles remained near the ramps after northbound traffic resumed. Neither the reopening nor their continued presence establishes when the southbound restriction ended or when queues in either direction cleared. Those timings remain unreported in the available accounts.⁠1⁠3

The road closure has an approximate endpoint. The account of the crash itself does not yet have an explanation: officials have not publicly established its cause, and the available reports leave the identities of the person killed and the hospitalized survivor unknown. Restored traffic answers the immediate question for motorists, but not what happened to the people in the wreck.⁠1⁠3