The Macon Telegraph
MACON, Ga. — The search is on for a driver who failed to stop after a deadly motorcycle accident Saturday morning in Pulaski County.
The victim, Richard E. “Bo” Bradham Jr., 29, of Eastman, was headed south on his motorcycle toward Hawkinsville on Ga. 247 about 11:20 a.m., said Pulaski County Coroner Fred Clarke III.
The volunteer firefighter was airlifted to Macon to the Medical Center, Navicent Health, and died Sunday.
The Georgia State Patrol is investigating the accident that happened when the driver of a silver Toyota pickup turned onto U.S. 341 into the wrong lane.
“We haven’t really been able to determine if there was contact with the truck,” said Sgt. Craig Smith of the Georgia State Patrol. “We do know the truck was in the wrong lane, headed north in the southbound lane.”
With the Toyota headed straight for him, Bradham might have taken evasive action and lost control of the motorcycle or the truck might have hit him, Smith said.
Bradham left behind a wife and three children.
His funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Southerland Funeral Chapel in Eastman.
“Bo was a jam-up guy,” Eastman Fire Chief Carl Johnson said. “He was a little comical. He had sort of a dry sense of humor. You had to like him. There was nothing not to like about him.”
Bradham’s mother, Sherri Terry, said she will miss his “pranking way.”
“You just never knew what you were going to fall for,” Terry said.
One time, her son told her the Department of Drivers Services had scales in the floor to tell if people were lying about their weight on their license.
Just as Terry has good memories, she takes comfort in knowing her son made good memories with his own children. Seven-year-old son, Trey, killed his first deer recently while hunting with his father, who loved the outdoors, mud-bogging and four-wheeling.
The grief is overwhelming and “unimaginable,” Terry said.
Bradham, who worked as a production controller at Robins Air Force Base and voluntarily fought fires for three years, donated his organs in his final act of serving others.
“Now, my son’s heart is beating in someone else,” Terry said. “He lives on and his memory lives on.”
Bradham died hours after Plainfield volunteer firefighter Christopher David Coursey was killed in a one-vehicle accident in Dodge County early Sunday.
“It was a big loss for this community,” Dodge County Coroner Joe Smith said of the deaths.
In the Pulaski County fatality, the GSP’s Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team will try to reconstruct the scene.
Other drivers had to swerve to avoid the oncoming pickup and said it didn’t look like the driver was making an effort to get in the correct lane, Smith said.
The suspect vehicle is believed to be a 2000-2004 silver Tacoma PreRunner with a Georgia license plate that includes the letters PWG or AWG, according to witnesses.
The driver is described as being a white man in his late 50s or early 60s who was wearing a dark-colored hat with a full brim all the way around, similar to a trooper’s hat, Smith said.
There could be damage to the left front or side of the pickup.
Anyone with information about the accident, the driver or the suspect vehicle is asked to call the Georgia State Patrol at 478-988-6740 or call 911.
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