Killed responding to Urbanna call 39 years ago
Nearly 100 bicyclists — and some motorcyclists — stopped on the Beryl R. Newman Memorial Bridge over Urbanna Creek Wednesday, May 10, to honor the late Middlesex County Chief Deputy Robert Talmadge Hicks, a Topping resident. The Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) lieutenant was killed when he ran off the bridge in May 1984 and drowned.
The annual Police Unity Tour stopped in Urbanna on its way to Washington, D.C. The 250-mile ride, which started in Portsmouth, is designed to raise awareness about police officers who have died in the line of duty and to raise money for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in the nation’s capital.
Lt. Hicks was responding to a “motorist in distress” call in Urbanna in the early hours on a Sunday morning when his police squad car somehow veered through guardrails on Newman bridge and into the water below.
Hick’s daughter Michelle Lorber and her daughter and grandchildren were on the bridge standing near a wreath dedicated in Hick’s honor. She was also at the bridge the morning when they pulled her father’s car from the water. “It was just horrible,” said Lorber emotionally. “I remember watching the car come out of the water and hearing someone say that my father’s business cards were scattered throughout the inside of the car.
“I just remember crying and crying,” she said as she started to cry. Several of the cyclists came over and consoled her. Lorber was 19 years old when her father died in the accident.
Hicks left behind a wife, three daughters and a son.
After the stop on the bridge, the group went to the Urbanna firehouse for a rest where the Middlesex County Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary served the group refreshments before the next leg to the nation’s capital.
