By Greg Rickabaugh, Jail Report Publisher
Two Augusta heroes were slashed in the face with a box blade March 5 while trying to help a woman who had wrecked her car with her two young children inside.
But Thomas Robinson and Dewayne White probably didn’t know the driver – 33-year-old Rasheda Guest – was mentally unstable and under the influence. They probably didn’t know she was wanted on a felony warrant for injuring several Richmond County deputies in December.
While I struggle to understand why she was free, it’s clear to me that she had no business caring for a baby boy and 2-year-old girl.
I called Thomas Robinson last week and asked him whether he regretted trying to help the woman. He didn’t.
“It is just in me to help people,” the 31-year-old man said. ‘I was not raised to walk away from people. My mother always taught me to help the next person because you don’t know what they are going through.” (GoFundMe for Robinson: https://gofund.me/ff78dc55)
When deputies came to the wreck Saturday night at Gordon Highway at Madrid Drive, they found Rasheda actively fighting with Deputy James Champion when he was attempting to stop her from fleeing the scene. She was swinging at the officer and made contact with his left arm leaving scratches on his forearm. She was eventually handcuffed.
According to a sheriff’s report, prior to deputies arriving, Rasheda used an Olympia black box blade to cut 46-year-old Dewayne White several times on his right hand when he attempted to help her get out of the vehicle. She also swung the box blade at White’s face contacting him three times on the right side of his face with the blade.
The woman also used the same box blade to cut Thomas Robinson on his left eye lid when he attempted to help Rasheda Guest kids out of the wrecked vehicle, the report says.
“Rasheda Guest stated that she only attacked White and Robinson because they were demons and they were the ones who placed roots on her causing her to drive on the wrong side of the road and wreck,” the report says.
The suspect admitted to snorting cocaine earlier in the day, which explains a lot.
The children were not harmed but were found to be “malnourished” and with diapers that were full, with urine spilling over.
Both Good Samaritans went to Doctors Hospital for their injuries.
The story doesn’t end there. The vehicle that Guest hit had a woman and her two adult daughters inside. Their vehicle flipped over with them inside while on the way to celebrate the mother’s birthday.
The driver, one of the daughters, was pregnant and had to remain in the hospital for a couple of days with contractions.
The mother, Stephanie Pressley, sent me this account:
“My birthday will forever be scarred with the embedded memory of a near death experience caused by a negligent driver. My daughters, Shantae and Candace Green, always make my birthday special and this past March 4th turned out to be a lifelong nightmare instead of happiness and a joyous 51st celebration.
We left from my house in Grovetown approximately 8:15 p.m., traveling down Gordon Highway in the center lane at a speed of 52 mph, and within minutes, I heard my daughter Candace, who was the driver and is 6 months pregnant, make a statement, “What the hell, What is” and a scream. I looked up from the back seat and saw headlights and boom!
In an instant I felt an out-of-body experience and paralysis from shock. I can’t even recall how I got out of the vehicle that was upside down, but I was in a panic and adrenaline pumping with worry if my daughter’s and unborn grandchild was OK. I didn’t realize how much pain I was actually in until I limped around the vehicle to get out the road to avoid getting hit to just collapse to the ground.
Although I didn’t feel any broken bones, I could feel ever muscle and joint within my body in intense pain. I remained laying down on my back for hours within a firetruck as no ambulance was available to transport me. Once the ambulance arrived, I was given something for the pain and taken to the hospital for treatment. I received X-rays from head to toe as every part of my body was battered from being in the vehicle that rolled multiple times before sliding upside down to the side of the road.
After 8 hours of tests, bloodwork and observation, I was discharged. I am bruised, scarred, muscle soreness and forever emotionally traumatized. I am still dealing with the hurt of my son being murdered in 2019 and now forever traumatized that someone intentionally tried to murder me and my daughters. This emotional trauma extends to our family and friends because this was a near death experience.”
It’s a story gets even more bizarre since Rasheda had just injured four officers while fighting them and biting them Dec. 18. That’s when officers responded for a possible psych evaluation at 2114 3rd Avenue. The suspect’s girlfriend told authorities Rasheda was “having a mental episode and not acting like herself,” according to a sheriff’s report.
Last Saturday’s encounter made me reconsider ever wanting to pull over and help someone in distress.
But then I talked to Robinson. He is founder of Toxic Elite Dance Company and has a love for children and doing what’s right.
Even though he lost his Atlanta house to fire last year and just moved back to Augusta, he has a good spirit, even after getting attacked while being a nice guy.
Robinson’s already undergone one procedure from the injuries, and he is facing more.
But he has no regrets.
“If it would happen again today, I would do the exact same thing,” he said.
And that gives me faith in society.
