Driver Says “Brakes Failed” in 118mph Crash

The radio call came first, sharp and broken by adrenaline, the kind of voice that tells you a bad moment has just become a scene no one can undo.

On westbound I-90, near the interchange with I-39 in Columbia County, a deputy had tried to stop a speeding SUV that would not slow down.

The vehicle shot toward the Highway 33 exit, rolled hard onto the on-ramp, and suddenly the interstate was no longer just traffic and steel but sirens, smoke, debris, and people shouting over each other to find out who was inside, who was hurt, and who was still missing.

In the first chaotic minutes, responders were trying to make sense of a crash that had turned into a rescue, and then into something far worse.

One person had been thrown clear. Two others were badly injured. Another passenger could not be found right away.

A deputy and firefighters moved fast, doing what they could with a scene that kept changing every second.

It was one of those moments where the outside world narrows to a few square yards of twisted metal, and everybody on the road understands that whatever happens next will matter long after the tow trucks leave.

The wreck happened just before 3:30 in the afternoon on February 1, 2025. According to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, the deputy on westbound I-90/94 near I-39 saw the SUV pass at a very high rate of speed and attempted a traffic stop, but the driver did not pull over.

Instead, the vehicle kept going, weaving through traffic and climbing above 100 miles per hour before exiting toward Highway 33.

That was where the rollover happened, and that was where the scene shifted from a pursuit into an emergency response with first aid, medical helicopters, and officers trying to hold the line while waiting for more help.

The sheriff’s office later said speed and intoxication were factors in the crash, and that the driver would likely face additional charges as the investigation continued.

In the language of police reports, it was a high-speed rollover; in the language of the people standing on the ramp that day, it was a mess that arrived all at once.

By the time the dust settled, the identity of the people involved had become part of the official record.

The driver was Jeremiah Johnson, 22, of Sparta. The passenger who did not survive was Jaden Fargen, 24, of Bangor.

Two other passengers were also in the vehicle and were both injured. One of them was airlifted to the hospital in critical condition, while the other was treated and later released.

The passenger who was ejected was pronounced deceased at the scene at 5:28 p.m., and the sheriff’s office made clear that the vehicle had been fleeing when it rolled.

In the days after the crash, the local news coverage settled on the same core facts again and again because the shape of the story was so stark: a young driver, a loaded vehicle, a police attempt to stop it, and a rollover that changed four lives in a single afternoon.

The first thing Jeremiah said when officers and medics reached him was not an excuse so much as a confession of panic.

He kept repeating that the brake would not work, that he had tried to get off the interstate, that he was scared when he saw the lights behind him.

In the bodycam and roadside footage circulated later, he said he had only had two beers over the course of the day, beginning around 9:00 that morning, and that marijuana would likely be in his system.

He also told officers that the woman whose car it was had warned him the brakes were bad and needed replacing on her next paycheck.

None of that changed the condition of the ramp, the speed of the SUV, or the fact that the vehicle kept moving fast enough to roll over after the driver tried to escape the stop.

In the moment, though, the scene was a blur of confused voices: one officer asking who was inside, another telling a trapped passenger not to move, a medic asking for an AED, someone else calling for suction, and repeated warnings that there might be another occupant still unaccounted for.

What made the crash even more disturbing was the information investigators later pulled from the SUV itself.

Data recovered from the vehicle showed Jeremiah Johnson traveling 118 miles per hour just five seconds before the crash, with the accelerator pressed almost fully to the floor.

Then, about 3.5 seconds before impact, the accelerator was released and the brakes were applied hard until the collision happened, which investigators said showed the brakes were in fact working.

That detail matters because it cuts through the story that was being told at the roadside, where Jeremiah insisted the brake had failed and that the only thing he could do was try to leave the interstate before hitting other cars.

The vehicle data told a much harsher story: the SUV was under control enough to slow, but still moving at a speed that made the rollover disaster waiting at the end of that ramp almost inevitable.

There was also the human reality of how rollover crashes tend to unfold when occupants are not buckled in.

The front passenger, Jaden, was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, and in a rollover that kind of detail can decide whether someone stays inside the vehicle or is thrown out when the roof and body rotate.

The vehicle left the road, rolled over multiple times, and Jaden was ejected and died at the scene.

The other passengers survived but not without consequences that would follow them long after the ambulances left.

One of them suffered life-altering injuries. Another was flown out and later released that same night.

In the language of the collision report, that is four people in one SUV. In the language of the families waiting for word, it is one lost, one changed forever, one still fighting, and one trying to explain how any of it happened at all.

As the legal process began, the county charged Jeremiah Johnson with homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle.

The first reports said he was being held on a $100,000 cash bond and that more charges were likely.

Over time, the case widened beyond the single homicide count. The charging package described in the video and reporting around the case included multiple intoxicated-driving and reckless-driving allegations, along with fleeing an officer and endangering safety.

Even before any final plea was entered, the case already contained the elements that make these prosecutions so emotionally difficult: alcohol, speed, a failed stop, a rollover, and a family left trying to understand how a weekend afternoon became an emergency room, a funeral, and a court docket.

For months after the crash, the case worked its way through court motions and delays.

What had started as a roadside emergency became a legal file full of accident reconstruction, toxicology, vehicle data, and witness statements.

The argument about the brakes remained part of the public conversation, but the evidence never let go of its central point: the SUV was traveling too fast for too long, and the slowdown came far too late to prevent the roll.

By then, Jeremiah was no longer just the driver at the center of a traffic stop.

He was a defendant facing a homicide charge in Columbia County, carrying the weight of one passenger’s absence, two others’ injuries, and the knowledge that the story had already moved past what anyone said at the scene.

Eventually Jeremiah Johnson struck a plea agreement with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to multiple charges tied to the crash.

Later coverage summarized the sentence as five years in prison, with release scheduled for late 2029.

That was the point when the case stopped being only an investigation and became a sentence with a calendar attached to it.

The court’s final handling of the matter was also marked by one of those courtroom moments that can freeze a room: in a tearful statement, the victim’s father asked to hug the defendant, and the judge allowed it.

People who were there described it as deeply emotional for both sides of the case.

Whatever one thinks of the sentence, that moment showed just how much the crash had spread beyond the ramp where the SUV rolled.

It had reached both families, and it had not let go. What makes stories like this linger is not only the violence of the impact but the way ordinary choices stack up until they become something irreversible.

A few drinks over the day. A decision to keep driving. A warning from someone else about bad brakes.

A deputy seeing a vehicle move too faSt. A driver choosing to flee anyway. A passenger without a seat belt.

A ramp, a rollover, a body thrown from the car, and then all the mechanical language that follows in the reports: data downloads, crash reconstruction, blood alcohol, plea negotiations, sentencing.

Taken one at a time, each piece looks manageable. Put together, they become the chain that broke four lives open.

The roadside footage from the crash captures that chain in real time better than any report can.

There is confusion, then panic, then the quick shift from a traffic stop into an accident scene, then the visible strain on officers who are trying to keep one injured person still, search for the missing passenger, and coordinate with medics all at once.

In the middle of that noise is Jeremiah insisting the brake failed. Later, the data says otherwise.

That contrast gives the whole case its shape. It is not merely that the crash happened.

It is that the story told in the car did not survive the data pulled from the car.

And once that happened, there was nowhere left for the case to go except through court, through sentencing, and toward the years Jeremiah Johnson will serve before his release date in late 2029.

In the end, this is a story about a route taken too fast, a stop not obeyed, and a collision that left one young man dead, two others seriously injured, and another person facing the rest of his life in the shadow of a decision made in seconds.

The interstate cleared. The debris was removed. The helicopters flew out. But the questions stayed behind for the families, and for everyone who later watched the footage and saw how quickly a normal afternoon can become the worst day of somebody else’s life.