MOULTRIE, Ga. — A Dawson resident was seriously hurt in a motorcycle wreck late Sept. 6. At one point, he didn’t have a pulse, the responding Georgia State Patrol trooper said.

Robert DeWayne Smith, 57, was driving his motorcycle east on Industrial Road near Industrial Parkway and lost control. GSP Trooper Taylor Cooper said it could’ve been a medical issue that caused it.

“He waded back over, ran off the roadway and into the ditch,” he said. “I heard his cousin say that he just got on insulin  for diabetes. I’m thinking maybe he had a diabetes issue.”

In losing control, Smith and his vehicle ran off the north side of the roadway, entered a ditch and traveled down it 53 feet. The vehicle came to rest on its left side, but Smith was thrown off.

“He didn’t have a pulse at first,” Cooper said. “They [Colquitt EMS[ took him to a hospital and from what I was told, they maintained the pulse for a while [and then] life-flighted him to Tallahassee.”

Colquitt EMS took Smith to Colquitt Regional Medical Center, from which he was taken by helicopter to Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare. 

A TMH spokeswoman told The Observer on Sept. 11 that they didn’t have a record of Smith being there anymore, and Cooper said the GSP hasn’t been given a call to update their reports on him.

“It was a simple wreck, but we thought it was going to be a lot worse than what it was,” Cooper said.