Tree Trimming Bucket Truck Kills 3 Members of Family in Walker County, Georgia

Crashes involving specialty trucks of various sorts — crane trucks, concrete mixer trucks, dump trucks, etc. — are often part of my trucking accident personal injury and wrongful death law practice in Georgia. Each type of specialty truck involves somewhat different issues.

Yesterday in Walker County — near where I attended school for six years in Chattooga County — 3 members of one family were killed when a bucket truck used for tree trimming crossed the center line of Highway 136 and struck two vehicles.

The three family members were airlifted to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga but did not survive. They were Anthony Thomas Hixson Jr., 36., of LaFayette, his 13 year old daughter, and his brother-in-law, James Eugene Whitaker, 45, of Ringgold.

The bucket truck belonged to Townsend Tree Service, an Indiana based company that has a large fleet of bucket trucks used for tree-trimming, clearance and vegetation management services for power and communication lines, pipelines and roadways. Townsend’s registered agent for service of process in Georgia is two blocks from my office.

Ken Shigley is a trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia who has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine), among the “Legal Elite” (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (Martindale). He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy. He served as chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute, is a national board member of the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice, and is on the National Advisory Board for the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America. Mr. Shigley has extensive experience representing parties in trucking and bus accidents, products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, spinal cord injury, brain injury and burn injury cases. Currently he is Treasurer of the 41,000 member State Bar of Georgia.This post is subject to our ethical disclaimer.