A helicopter airlifted the seriously injured 59-year-old man from the scene of the crash. The Webb City man joins the growing list of Missouri drivers seriously injured in preventable car accidents on the state’s highways. The latest on the list of head-on collisions occurred on the second Thursday of July — the result of a driver traveling in the wrong direction on an interstate highway. Two other vehicles were involved in the crash.
The highway patrol report states that the seriously injured man was heading north in the southbound lane of Interstate I-49 prior to the crash. He collided head-on with a southbound Ford Fusion driven by a 19-year-old woman. After being hit, the young woman’s car spun out of control and hit a pickup truck driven by a 21-year-old man. The wrong-way driver’s vehicle continued traveling north on the highway’s southbound lane for a little over a quarter of a mile prior to coming to a stop in the roadway’s median.
According to the investigators, the Webb City man had gotten on to the highway traveling in the wrong direction. The highway patrol alleges that he drove his vehicle in the wrong direction for two and one-half miles before he crashed into the young woman’s Ford. Investigators have said that there is reason to believe that alcohol may have been involved in the wrong-way driver’s actions.
So far, charges have not been filed against the wrong-way driver. Hopefully, all three of the drivers involved in the Missouri highway collision will soon be able to resume normal lives, and the Show-Me State will suffer no further needless and preventable head-on collisions. There may be, however, good cause for the two drivers who were traveling in the correct direction on the highway to file personal injury claims against the party that the investigation concludes was responsible for the collision.
Source: Nevada Daily Mail, “Man hurt while driving wrong way on I-49,” Sharon Knight, July 12, 2013
