Police shut down traffic shortly before 7 p.m. on Thursday night along northbound Interstate 540, as emergency crews waited for a helicopter to airlift a motorcyclist to a hospital following an early evening crash.
Emergency crews out of Rogers responded to a motorcycle wreck on Interstate 540 near Lowell, according to the Rogers Fire Department.
An ambulance responded to the scene, and a helicopter was later called to the location, according to Lowell police. The man on the motorcycle suffered life-threatening injuries and was flown to Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mo., according to emergency crews who responded to the scene. Police blocked traffic in the southbound lanes for about one hour for the medical helicopter.
An eyewitness told 5NEWS she saw the motorcyclist lying in the middle of the road with his clothes torn up.
A Rogers ambulance responded to a separate motorcycle crash in the same area of the interstate less than one hour later. The victim was conscious and breathing, according to emergency crews, but he was transported to Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville with serious injuries.
Crews responded to a different motorcycle crash Thursday morning near Springdale, in which a patient was hospitalized with unspecified injuries.
Three people were also hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries earlier Thursday on Interstate 540 when two vehicles collided near Exit 82 northbound, according to emergency crews.
