Haw River is the location of the untimely death of blood plasma pioneer Dr. Charles Drew, on April 1, 1950. He was driving a group of his colleagues to a medical conference in Alabama when he apparently dozed off at the wheel, resulting in a crash and the mortal wounds that were the cause of his death. An urban myth developed that he had been denied treatment and allowed to bleed to death, because of his being black, but eyewitnesses, including one of his fellow doctors who was at the hospital, have testified that nothing of the sort happened, as detailed in the "Raleigh News and Observer".