Report: Goforth pushed another rider off to save him from injury
Staff report
A 21-year-old former Richmond County man died early Sunday morning after crash his ATV during a ride on County Line Road along the border of Montgomery and Richmond counties.
Zachary Goforth
Zachary Dale Goforth, of Candor, was one of three riding in the dark when, shortly before 4 a.m. he lost control of his all-terrain vehicle. A North Carolina Highway Patrol report indicated dust kicked up by another four-wheeler impaired Goforth’s ability to see. Police said Goforth ran off the road into a ditch and overturned.
Goforth was taken to FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, then Univeristy of North Carolina Hospitals in Chapel Hill, where he was pronounced dead.
It’s the second serious ATV incident that has severely injured or killed a young person in the area. In late July, Scotland High School student-athlete Jaylend Ratliffe suffered a traumatic brain injury while riding his ATV. Ratliffe fractured his skull in the incident and remains in a Charlotte hospital.
Goforth was a 2011 graduate of West Montgomery High School. He was a 2010 all-conference football player and placed third in the National Hunter Safety Team, shotgun division. He was an active member of the National Guard as a track vehicle mechanic. He was a member of HHC, 30th Brigade, Special Troops Battalion. He was attached to Charlie Company, 30th Brigade, Special Troops Battalion.
He was a member of McLean Presbyterian Church in Ellerbe.
The family will receive friends from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at Pugh-Troy Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held Aug. 29 at 1 p.m. at First Wesleyan Church, 1368 NC Hwy 134N, Troy. Burial, with military honors, will be in McLean Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Ellerbe.
Memorials may be directed to the Montgomery County Humane Society, 1150 Okeewemee Rd., Troy, NC 27371 or Wounded Warrior Project, PO Box 758517, Topeka, KS 66675.
