UGA alum, recent med school grad dies after crash with suspected drunken driver

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A University of Georgia graduate who had recently completed medical school was killed after a drunken driver smashed into his car, officials said.

Tyler Wallace was driving home from his post-medical training class in Smyrna at the time of the Jan. 18 crash, according to a GoFundMe organized by his family to cover the cost of his medical expenses, memorial service and burial.

Channel 2′s Chris Jose was on Highlands Parkway, where flowers and a teddy bear mark the spot the accident happened. The fence was still bent over and the utility box in pieces.

Police say that the other driver, Brent Douglas Davis, turned left onto Highlands Parkway Drive from the Highlands Grove Business Park and hit the driver’s side of Wallace’s 2016 Chrysler 200.

First responders had to cut the door off its hinges to free Wallace from the Chrysler. He was rushed to WellStar Kennestone Hospital with serious injuries and died two days later.

Police at the scene of the wreck asked Davis to step out of his truck to speak with them, the warrant said. An officer noticed he was unsteady on his feet and his speech was slurred. Officers noticed the smell of mouthwash on his breath.

Davis denied a field sobriety test and denied he was drunk. Police later found beer cans in the car.

Davis was charged with homicide by vehicle and DUI.

Attorney Justin Spizman is representing the Wallace family. He said Wallace’s name will live on with a foundation the family plans to create in his name.

“In helping other people, I think we get some semblance of justice, but at the end of the day, there’s nothing that anyone can do to make this right,” Spizman said.

Spizman said the family is devastated and no amount of justice served will help.

“You never think as a mother, sister or father, that you’ll be burying your son,” Spizman said. “There’s no result in a criminal case,. there’s no civil resolution that will ever make this feel like it was a worthwhile trade.”

Wallace graduated from UGA and Augusta Medical College. Last summer, he aced his board exams and set up his own physical therapy practice.

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