Two people, though both expected to survive a head-on crash, suffered injuries severe enough that they had to be airlifted from the scene.
Per the reports from the Illinois State Police, one driver is a 21-year-old man. The other is a 26-year-old woman. The crash happened in Monroe County on Friday night, Jan. 3.
On that fateful night, at about 10:46 p.m., the young man was heading down Illinois 159. The police think that he drove off of the road. He tried to correct his course, but he over-corrected. This caused him to drive directly into the oncoming traffic. His pickup truck slammed into the woman’s car.
What this accident really shows is how little control people often have in an accident. People sometimes assume that they can be defensive drivers and avoid accidents. While defensive driving can help, there was nothing this woman could have done to prepare for the fact that a man in a pickup was about to drive into her lane. It appears that she made no mistakes and still got seriously injured.
This also shows how each little error can quickly compound on the last. It’s unclear why the driver drove off of the shoulder, but he allegedly did something to let that happen. The over-correction was another error. In a split-second, it went from a safe nighttime drive to a catastrophic accident.
This is the type of thing that can happen anywhere, and anyone on the road faces some serious risks. Those who get injured need to know how to seek out financial compensation.