CHARLESTON, Mo. — The Missouri State Highway Patrol has released a report in the series of accidents on Interstate 57 that left five dead and 15 injured last Thursday.
Reports of six deaths were widely reported on Friday; however, the Highway Patrol reports only five deaths. Mississippi County Coroner Terry Parker said, “Communication was screwy (last Thursday).”
Parker added that, “One that we thought he died, did not.”
One of those injured in last Thursday’s crashes was a 50-year-old Poplar Bluff man, Terry Wheetley. He received serious injuries and was transported by Air Evac to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.
With the large number of vehicles involved and high number of injuries, it took Missouri Highway Patrol investigators several days to sort through all of the information.
The accident began at 8 a.m. lastThursday on southbound I-57 at the 13.4 mile marker just outside of Charleston when a semi-truck driven by Jose Lopez-Ortiz, 39, of Laredo, Mexico, struck the rear of a semi-truck driven by Henry Donnerson, 57, of Memphis, Tennessee, causing a chain reaction of crashes.
Lopez-Ortiz received serious injuries and was transported by ambulance to Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau. Blake Lercher, 35, of White, Arkansas, a driver of one of the 17 vehicles involved in the accident at the southbound 13.4-mile marker, was flown by Air Evac to Barnes-Jewish Hospital with serious injuries while drivers of other vehicles, Aeian Baird, 26, of Carterville, Illinois, and Orlando Matthews, 48, of Cairo, Illinois, received minor injuries and were transported by ambulance to Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston.
Another accident occurred at the northbound 13.4-mile marker on I-57, when a truck driven by Jose Hernandez, 45, of Houston, Texas, struck the trailer of a semi-truck driven by Terry Wheetley, 50, of Poplar Bluff. Wheetley’s vehicle was disabled from the prior crash. This led to a semi-truck, driven by Ronale Reider, 41, of Lake Charles, Louisiana, striking the rear of Hernandez’s vehicle.
Hernandez was pronounced dead at the scene by Parker.
Jorge Hernandez, 46, of Cleveland, Texas, a passenger in the vehicle driven by Jose Hernandez, and Reider were transported with minor injuries to the Missouri Delta Medical Center by the New Madrid County Sheriff’s Office.
At the southbound 13.6-mile marker another accident involving 13 cars occurred when a vehicle driven by Hossein Zolfaghar, 53, of Plano, Texas, struck the rear of a vehicle driven by Lorenzo Alarcon, 59, of Del Rio, Texas, causing a chain reaction of crashes.
William Ryan, 75, of Pevely, Missouri was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:18 a.m. by Parker. Also pronounced dead at the scene were Joshua Wiggins, 30, Candler, North Carolina, and Raina Jamerson, 22, of Kenosho, Wisconsin. Jesse Jimenez, 51, of Houston, Texas, was transported by Air Medical to Jenny Steward Hospital in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and later pronounced dead by Dr. Shea Godwin at 1:51 p.m.
Timonikia Coburn, 24, of Kenosha, Wisconsin; Jamille Newson, 24, Browlingbrooke, Illinois; Michael Gibson, 53, of Effingham, Illinois; Steve Mammoser, 54, of Teutopolis, Illinois; Patrick Mammoser, 57, of Newton, Illinois and Douglas Mammoser, 60, of Teutopolis, Illinois were all taken by ambulance to Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau with serious injuries.
Ollif Sasser, 46, of Little Rock, Arkansas, and Cleo Milan, 50, of Munster, Indiana, were taken by ambulance Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston with minor injuries.
The crash closed I-57 for about 20 hours, reopening at 5 a.m. Friday.
Sikeston DPS Capt. Derick Wheetley said he estimated as many as 150 or more first responders from all over the area gave aid, including 13 fire departments and nine EMS departments from Missouri and Illinois.
Regional Homeland Security Response Team, a hazmat and rescue team of first responders from Sikeston, Cape Girardeau Jackson and emergency personnel from Butler and Stoddard Counties as well as Scott, Mississippi and New Madrid Counties all responded to the scene.
Wheetley said he can’t remember ever working an accident scene of this magnitude.
“Hopefully it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event and we don’t see anything like it again,” Wheetley said.
A thank you ceremony will be held Thursday to recognize emergency responders who assisted with incident management, recovery and clean-up efforts during the accident. The ceremony will take place at 3 p.m. at the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Southeast District Office complex in Sikeston.
“This type of incident requires multi-agency coordination and consistent communication,” said Mark Croarkin, MoDOT Southeast District Engineer. “From the first call we received to the reopening of Interstate 57, we appreciated so many agencies pulling together to assist during this unfortunate event.”