HICKORY, N.C. -- A wrong-way crash killed a passenger in a car going northbound on southbound Highway 321 in Hickory on Tuesday afternoon.

The crash happened shortly before 2 p.m. just south of Interstate 40. U.S. 321 southbound was closed from mile marker 43 to mile marker 42 for about two hours.

The Highway Patrol is investigating and trying to figure out where Jessie Buff got onto the highway going the wrong direction. Cable barriers in the median of the divided highway make it impossible to cross over.

Witnesses said the elderly couple that was driving north in a white sedan in the southbound lanes came out of nowhere. Lisa Roten said she blew her horn and waved her arms at the driver, trying to get him to stop.

Witnesses said 75-year-old Buff was driving down the middle of the road when he hit a pickup truck head-on.

“It was just coming in the middle of the road. Nobody had a chance to move,” said witness Elizabeth Mellon.

The passenger in the sedan, Buff's wife Daisy Mae, died on impact.

The wife of the 60-year-old driver of the pickup, Howard Helton of Maiden, was in a van with his brother driving on U.S. 321 and saw the crash happen. She rushed to her husband’s side after rescue crews cut him out of the vehicle.

Medical helicopters airlifted Buff and Helton to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.

Trooper said they don’t know why Buff was going the wrong way on U.S. 321.

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