Polk County Sheriff’s Office Press Release
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office investigated a traffic fatality in Lake Wales last evening, involving a teenager on a dirt bike and an adult on a motorized bicycle. Preliminary details are as follows:
Around 7:35 p.m. on Sunday, February 13, 2022, 15-year-old Landen Cole Jackson of Babson Park was operating a green and black Kawasaki dirt bike northbound on Lewis Griffin Road near Grove Road 3 when he was struck head-on by 53-year-old Marrell Faison, Jr., of Lake Wales, who was going southbound on Lewis Griffin in the northbound lane on a black motorized bicycle. Jackson was critically injured and flown to a hospital as a trauma alert – he succumbed to his injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Faison was also critically injured and flown to a local hospital as a trauma alert. He is in critical condition.
Neither of the two involved in the crash were wearing helmets or protective gear, and neither of the bikes had lights (it was dark at the time of the crash). The roadway was closed for approximately three hours during the investigation, which is ongoing.
