A 67-year-old Dudley man was killed in a single-vehicle crash on Pea Ridge Road Monday.
Willie Frank Bacon died when the 2020 Ford F150 pickup he was driving went off the road and struck a tree, authorities say.
Bacon and his 75-year-old wife, Charlotte, had just turned off of U.S. Hwy. 441 onto Pea Ridge Road and were headed toward State Route 16 when they went off the road in the curve of the 200 block where the Seventh Day Adventist church is, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.
“Witnesses said the truck was traveling at a high rate of speed,” Sills added.
The pickup struck a tree, and the force of the impact caused it to bounce off and hit another tree, according to Putnam County Coroner Hollis Harrison. Bacon died from blunt force trauma to the head and torso, Harrison said.
Sills said Bacon’s 75-year-old wife, Charlotte, was with him, and she was able to walk to the responding Putnam County EMS ambulance, which took her to Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital.
Putnam County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Hudspeth responded to and worked the wreck. Sills said there was no update on Charlotte Bacon’s condition Tuesday by the newspaper’s press time.