Two colleges cyclists were killed, seven were injured, and a driver was charged after he struck a student cycling team in Tennessee on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Milligan University Sophomore students Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Four of the seven injured students were in critical condition.<\/p>\n
Vehicle driver John Benfield has been charged with two counts of vehicular homicide and five counts of aggravated assault.<\/p>\n
The 69-year-old from Newland, North Carolina, is in custody and could face further charges as the investigation develops.<\/p>\n
Engdahl, Rogers, and the seven injured students were part of an 11-rider training session when the incident occurred early Wednesday morning on a rural stretch of Highway 19 in Hampton, Tennessee.<\/p>\n
The seven injured students were rushed to Johnson City Medical Center in the aftermath of the accident. The New York Times<\/em> reports several air medical teams were involved in transporting athletes.<\/p>\n Six of the injured students remained in hospital Wednesday evening. One was discharged.<\/p>\n Milligan University, a small Christian arts college in Elizabethton, Tennessee, issued the following statement Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are profoundly shocked and saddened to share that members of our cycling team were in an accident involving a vehicle this morning while cycling in Hampton, TN. There are no words to adequately describe this level of loss. Our prayers are with all those impacted by this tragedy. Please keep the Milligan community in your prayers,\u201d read the statement.<\/p>\n Officials did not provide any details on the circumstances of the crash.<\/p>\n The Tennessee Highway Patrol is leading an investigation into what occurred.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know the families and Milligan University deeply want answers, and we want to provide those answers. But it\u2019s our responsibility to ensure that we conduct a fair investigation thoroughly and provide facts based on that investigation,\u201d Major Roy Brown of the Tennessee Highway Patrol said during a press briefing.<\/p>\n Tennessee District Attorney General Steven Finney did not provide details on whether the driver was intoxicated when he spoke to reporters Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an elite cycling team. It\u2019s not a bunch of just club guys getting together to ride,\u201d Finney said. \u2018They know what they\u2019re doing. They rode in a peloton. One of the boys just won last weekend in one of the local races.\u201d<\/p>\n Milligan University boasts large rosters on both its men\u2019s and women\u2019s cycling teams. The men\u2019s squad won the collegiate national championships team time trial earlier this summer. U.S. Olympian Megan Jastrab rode for the women\u2019s team before she turned pro.<\/p>\n USA Cycling issued its own statement Wednesday night.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are deeply saddened to learn of this morning\u2019s tragic crash involving the Milligan University Cycling team. Our hearts go out to the two student-athletes whose lives were taken far too soon, Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers, as well as to the riders who were injured,\u201d USA Cycling said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/news\/two-killed-seven-injured-driver-strikes-milligan-university-cycling-team\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/milligan.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated August 20, 2026 01:55AM Two colleges cyclists were killed, seven were injured, and a driver was charged after he struck a student cycling team in Tennessee on Wednesday. Milligan University Sophomore students Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Four of the seven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2102676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2102676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2102676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2102676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2102676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2102676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2102676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Investigations continue into Milligan University tragedy<\/h2>\n