According the Retha Hood, J. D. was named for the doctor who delivered him after the doctor said he would either buy him his first suite of clothes.

The Accident
On the night of February 7, 1985, at approximately 7 p.m., J. D. Hood was travelling south on U.S. Highway 45 to his home in West Point, Mississippi. He had left an establishment located north of the city, he soon thought about a matter which he had intended to discuss with the patron, and he attempted to turn his automobile around and head back north on the highway to the establishment. The highway was clear, but the shoulders were icy, and when appellant pulled into a roadside park adjacent to the highway for the purpose of turning around, his vehicle became stuck in the ice. He began walking toward the north on the west paved portion of the southbound lane, against the traffic. 

Hollis Oakley was driving a 61-foot tractor-trailer rig in a northerly direction on U.S. Highway 45 and was acting in the scope and course of his employment with West Trucking Company. Oakley drove his rig into the left or southbound lane of traffic in order to pass a slower-moving vehicle. According to Oakley, he looked into his side-view mirror to make sure that the trailer had cleared the slower vehicle. He had almost passed the vehicle when he saw appellant standing toward the center part of the southbound lane. Oakley turned the steering wheel hard right, but struck the appellant with the left front part of the truck, knocking him into a ditch. 

Oakley summoned help, and appellant was taken to Ivy Memorial Hospital in West Point, where it was determined that he had sustained serious injuries—crushed right elbow with further trauma to the arm resulting in a palsied hand.