Mike McCormick and Aaron Smeltzer were reporting in Polk County when the incident occurred Monday
Two journalists in North Carolina died Monday when a tree fell onto their SUV, WYFF-TV reports. The Greenville, South Carolina-based station announced that their anchor Mike McCormick and photojournalist Aaron Smeltzer were both covering the impact of rain in Polk County when the incident took place.
WYFF-TV said McCormick joined the station this year but covered the local news for more than a decade. They said Smeltzer joined the newsroom in 2007 as a reporter. In 2014, he became the channel’s Sunday evening anchor.
« All of us at WYFF News 4 are grieving. We are a family and we thank you, our extended family, for your comfort as we mourn and as we seek to comfort the families of Mike and Aaron, » the station said.
The tree fell in the same county where a landslide killed a woman inside her home on May 19, the Associated Press reports.
Anchor Carol Goldsmith said on air that McCormick and Smeltzer were « beloved members of our team — our family. »
