LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C. — The family of a man killed in a golf cart accident in Swansea is mourning after his sudden death this week.
Christopher Hoffman Sr., 51, was killed Wednesday when an SUV collided with the golf cart he was riding on Huckabee Mill Road.
"It still hurts, it hurts a lot, but my dad always taught me to be strong, keep a good backbone, so I'm trying to do that as best I can," said Christopher Hoffman Jr., Hoffman's son, on Thursday.
His son said his dad was his last surviving parent since he lost his mother at the age of 11. He described his dad as his twin, considering him a role model for the family.
"My dad was my best friend, we would go golfing and go fishing together go hunting together," Hoffman Jr. said. "Everything that I had an interest in he was more than happy to go do it with me."
Before the accident, he said his father was helping a neighbor do yard work and was coming to pick him up. Now, he said he wishes he had told his dad not to even go.
"My dad asked me that morning if I would like to go with him, and I didn’t," he said. "I wish I could tell him now but I can't do that anymore."
The South Carolina Highway Patrol said an SUV rear-ended Hoffman's golf cart, causing his cart to flip over. Hoffman Sr. died at the scene.
Wanda Joyner, who lives on Huckabee Mill Road, was there shortly after the collision and described the scene as chaotic. She said she immediately went into action.
"I heard something like a loud boom noise like something blew up," Joyner added. "It sounded like something was falling apart and when I came outside and I saw the car and a man laying down there on the road so I called 9-1-1."
Hoffman Jr. said he wants to remember his father by thinking about the great memories they had together, especially the love he had for his nine-year-old grandchild.
"I remember the first time she called him paw paw, he got a good kick out of it.”
The crash remains under investigation.