Authorities in Illinois are investigating a video that appears to show a woman livestreaming on TikTok at the moment she struck and killed a pedestrian in the Chicago suburb of Zion earlier this week.
The incident occurred on Monday evening at approximately 5.30pm. Police confirmed that Darren Lucas, 59, of Beach Park, was hit by a vehicle and later pronounced dead at a local hospital from blunt force injuries sustained in the collision.
A screen recording of a TikTok live broadcast, published on the platform on Friday morning, has since surfaced. The footage shows a woman identified by the username “TeaTyme3” speaking into her phone while driving. A loud thud is then heard, prompting her to exclaim, “Fuck, fuck, fuck … I just hit somebody.” The livestream abruptly ended after the impact, with a child’s voice asking what had happened and another person enquiring whether the driver was unharmed.
The driver, a 43-year-old woman, remained at the scene and cooperated with police. Zion police investigations commander, Lieutenant Paul Kehrli, stated that drugs and alcohol were not suspected to have played a role in the crash. The Lake County state’s attorney’s office confirmed it had been made aware of the video but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.
The TikTok account in question has since been altered. The username was changed, the biography section deleted, and the account made private.
The video has prompted widespread reaction online. A Reddit user who claimed to have witnessed the livestream described the experience as deeply unsettling. “It feels like I accidentally witnessed the moment someone’s life was taken and now I can’t stop thinking about the victim, and how avoidable it was,” the user wrote. They added that the driver appeared distracted, “reading comments and grinning at her phone,” before the collision. “A man died because she wanted attention from a livestream,” the post concluded.
The tragedy has reignited concerns about mobile phone use while driving. Numerous studies have linked distracted driving, particularly involving mobile devices, to an increased risk of serious accidents. Campaigners have long warned that livestreaming while behind the wheel poses a grave danger both to drivers and to others on the road.
Lucas’s family expressed their grief in the wake of the revelations. His son-in-law, Chris King, told the Lake and McHenry County Scanner that learning of the video had intensified their sorrow. “News of the video made us hold our loss tighter to our hearts,” King said. “We will continue to pray for what the driver must be going through. We are trying to find our ways to live, without someone we cherished so much.”
The case remains under investigation by Zion police and the Lake County state’s attorney’s office. No charges have yet been announced.
The incident has left the local community shaken, with many residents expressing shock that a moment of distraction linked to social media could result in such devastating consequences. For Lucas’s family, the focus remains on mourning the loss of a man they described as cherished, while authorities continue to examine the circumstances surrounding the fatal crash.
