Three people were airlifted to Nashville-area hospitals following a wreck on Dixon Springs Highway in Smith County, Tennessee. Images from the scene were credited to the Smith County Rescue Squad, whose volunteer crews responded to the crash site to assist the injured before helicopters could transport them for advanced medical care.
The wreck occurred on Dixon Springs Highway, according to WZTV, which first reported that all three patients were flown to hospitals in the Nashville area. The road is officially designated Tennessee State Route 25, a 67.6-mile state highway maintained by the Tennessee Department of Transportation that links Carthage in Smith County to Trousdale, Sumner, and Robertson counties, according to background compiled on Wikipedia. Details on the number of vehicles involved, the severity of injuries, or a possible cause have not been released.
Volunteer Crews Handle the First Response
The response fell to the Smith County Rescue Squad, an all-volunteer, nonprofit emergency organization founded in 1966 in Carthage that operates without paid personnel, providing vehicle extrication, water rescue, and technical search services countywide, per the squad's own organizational background. The squad has invested in updated equipment in recent years, including a $340,000 Community Development Block Grant in 2022 to acquire a new vehicle extrication truck, followed by a $12,558 state Fire Marshal grant in 2023 to replace vehicle-lifting airbags that were two decades old, according to the Smith County Insider.
Traffic crash investigations on roads like this one typically fall under the Tennessee Highway Patrol's District 6, headquartered in Cookeville, which handles official accident reconstructions and state collision reporting, per state guidance published by the Tennessee government. It remains unclear whether THP has released a preliminary crash report detailing contributing factors in this incident.
Why Severe Crashes Here Mean a Flight to Nashville
Smith County's local hospital, Highpoint Health – Riverview with Ascension Saint Thomas in Carthage, provides around-the-clock emergency care but does not operate a designated trauma center, meaning severe trauma victims must be airlifted to Nashville for advanced treatment, according to Rehab.com. That gap is typically bridged by Vanderbilt LifeFlight, established in 1984 as Middle Tennessee's critical air medical transport service, which operates eight helicopter bases across the region, including ones in nearby Sumner County and Putnam County, per Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine. Patients with life-threatening injuries are usually flown to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Middle Tennessee's only Level 1 trauma center, or to TriStar Skyline Medical Center, a Level 2 trauma center in Nashville, as explained by Nashville Medical News.
It has not been confirmed which of these hospitals received the three patients airlifted from Dixon Springs Highway. Vanderbilt Medical Center and TriStar Skyline Medical Center are described as the region's primary destinations for airlifted trauma patients, but no source has specified where these particular three were taken.
A Rural Highway With a History of Severe Wrecks
This is not the first time Dixon Springs Highway has produced a scene requiring extrication and air evacuation. In May 2022, a collision on the 900 block of the highway involving a gravel dump truck and a sedan required vehicle extrication by the Smith County Rescue Squad and an emergency flight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, according to the Smith County Insider's earlier reporting. The stretch's rural geometry and the county's limited local trauma care combine to make helicopter transport a routine part of the emergency response here.
Just three months ago, Hoodline reported on a motorcyclist killed after crash elsewhere in Smith County, where emergency crews set up a landing zone at a boat ramp before flying the rider to TriStar Skyline Medical Center. The rider later died from injuries. Statewide, Tennessee recorded 1,323 traffic fatalities in 2023, with motor vehicle crashes remaining among the leading causes of preventable injury deaths, according to data cited by GKBM and attributed to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
The current conditions of the three people airlifted from the Dixon Springs Highway wreck have not been released, and it remains unknown whether the crash involved multiple vehicles or a rollover. Hoodline will update this story as more information becomes available.
