Man found beaten at Pigeon Creek park

A 71-year-old Mountain Home, Ark., man suffered serious head injuries after an apparent altercation with another man in the Pigeon Creek Park on Norfork Lake north of Mountain Home Sunday night.
Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery said deputies found Herman R. Hackworth, 71, on the ground and covered in blood in Pigeon Creek Park. Hackworth was unable to tell deputies what had happened.
Authorities first received a 911 call about a man who was face-down in the park and covered with blood. While officers were en route, a second 911 call came in from a woman who said her husband had been in an altercation at Pigeon Creek Park.
That man, 27-year-old Adam M. Mudgett, was interviewed at the sheriff's department, where he told authorities that he had gone to Pigeon Creek Park and Hackworth had approached him and began talking with him. After a few minutes, an altercation broke out between the two, and Mudgett hit Hackworth two or three times causing him to fall to the ground. Authorities did not say what started the altercation.
Evidence at the scene suggests that after the altercation, Hackworth retrieved a towel from his minivan and walked a short distance away before falling to the ground, Montgomery said.
Mudgett told officials he then went home, and later told his wife about the incident. She then called 911.
Hackworth was taken by ambulance to Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home and was later airlifted to Cox Hospital in Springfield with serious head injuries, the sheriff said.
The investigation is continuing into the cause of the altercation and charges are possible, according to the sheriff.