Area authorities are searching for a hit-and-run driver in the death of a pedestrian on Interstate 85 in Jackson County.

Jackson County emergency workers responded after getting a 2:30 p.m. call about a dead body at I-85 southbound near Dry Pond Road, said Steve Nichols, emergency services director.

The victim, Aleksandr Petrovich, 57, of Asheville, N.C., was the driver of a tractor-trailer who had pulled onto the shoulder, stepped out of the vehicle and was walking on the roadway toward the rear of the vehicle.

A box truck then struck Petrovich and kept traveling southbound toward Atlanta, according to GSP.

Witnesses describe the truck as having a graphic of a picture frame with green and red artwork within the frame and “Foodservice” in the name. The vehicle “will also have a missing passenger side mirror,” GSP said.

The driver was described as a white or Hispanic man in his 40s with a beard. Anyone with information on the vehicle is asked to call the GSP post in Athens at 706-552-4439.

Authorities “have searched all the truck stops in the county so far and haven’t been able to locate anything,” Nichols said. “The (truck driver) is going to have a bunch of damage to the front of his vehicle.”