Seriously injured Saturday crash victims were military

Darrell Todd Maurina


WAYNESVILLE, Mo. (Nov. 18, 2008) — Waynesville police reported Monday that both people injured in a Saturday night wreck on Highway H were Fort Leonard Wood military personnel.

The names have not been released and charges are pending, according to Officer Sharon Miller.

The two men, one 20 and the other 25, were airlifted Saturday night to a Springfield hospital after being partially ejected through the driver’s side door of a green 1998 Buick LeSabre in a crash about 9 p.m., a few hundred feet up the Highway H hill from Southside Road, which leads into the Hunters’ Point residential subdivision. The crash was initially reported as a possible fatality but both men are still alive in serious but stable condition at a Springfield hospital, Miller said.

The single-vehicle rollover wreck shut down the main roadway from Fort Leonard Wood’s west gate for nearly an hour Saturday night while two rescue helicopters landed on the roadway to evacuate the occupants.

“Their vehicle was southbound on H Highway, lost control and after swerving into the northbound lane, it came back into the southbound lane, left the right-hand side of the road, and hit a tree,” Miller said. “By the evaluation of the state trooper on the scene, they weren’t wearing their seat belts.”

The Buick was totaled and removed by Jack’s Towing.

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