Every county road has a personality. Interstate 70 is the grind; the I-70 entry covers it. Highway K is the five o'clock stop-and-go; Highway K at five covers that. Highway 94, once it leaves the Weldon Spring area heading west, is the county's weekend road: two lanes along the bluffs above the Missouri River, through Defiance and on toward Augusta, carrying wine country visitors, Katy Trail riders headed for a trailhead, motorcycles on a Sunday loop, and the people who live out there and drive it every day.
This entry is about what that road produces, and what to do the same week.
What makes the two-lane stretch different
This ledger does not publish crash counts it cannot source. It does describe the road, which anyone who has driven it can check for themselves.
- Hills and curves. The road rises and falls with the river bluffs, and sight lines shorten over crests and around bends.
- Thin shoulders. Many stretches leave little room to pull off, which makes a stopped car, a slow vehicle or a crash scene harder to get around.
- Mixed speeds. Drivers who know every curve share the road with visitors reading signs, cyclists, farm equipment and riders.
- Turning traffic. Wineries, trailheads and driveways mean cars slowing to turn, often where the driver behind does not expect it.
- Wildlife at dusk. The road runs through wooded country along the river, and animals cross.
- The drive home. A long afternoon out can end with a tired drive back after dark.
The crashes a road like this produces
A two-lane road with curves and driveways tends to produce a few recognizable crashes: a rear-end hit when the car ahead slows to turn into a lot, a car that drops a wheel off the edge on a curve and jerks back, a sideswipe where the lanes are narrow, a collision with a cyclist or a motorcycle. On a road without much shoulder, even a minor crash can leave people standing near a live lane, which makes the scene more stressful than the damage suggests.
The body does not sort crashes by scenery. A rear-end tap at a winery turnoff loads a neck the same way a tap on Highway K does. A car that drops off the pavement and swerves back loads the neck sideways and the low back with a twist. Soft-tissue pain posts late either way; the week after lays out the timeline.
At the scene out there
If you can, move the cars out of the travel lane, or turn on the flashers and get everyone well off the road. Cell service can be spotty in parts of the river valley, so if a call will not connect, try again from higher ground or have someone drive to where it does. Then do the ordinary things: exchange information, and photograph both cars and where they came to rest.
Then write down what the body did. Which direction the hit came from. Whether a wheel dropped off the edge. Whether you were turning, slowing or stopped. Where your head went. What hurts before bed. The dated entry explains why tonight's version matters.
Why the weekend crash gets postponed
A crash on a Saturday afternoon comes with built-in reasons to wait. Nobody wants to spend the rest of a day out sitting in an emergency department over a sore neck. Sunday is for recovering from Saturday. Monday is a workday. By Tuesday the neck is stiffer and the story has become "I'll see how it feels next week." Feeling fine is an entry too, and so is the stiffness that posts on day two.
The fix is small: put the exam on the calendar Sunday night, for the first opening of the week.
Getting examined from the west end of the county
From Defiance or Augusta, O'Fallon is the shortest drive of Missouri Injury Clinic's three offices. The O'Fallon office is the county's own: 2163 West Terra Lane, (636) 280-0990, open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 9 to 6, with Wednesday and Friday by appointment. Hazelwood, (314) 627-1411, and Tesson Ferry, (314) 530-5480, are open Monday through Thursday 9 to 6 and Friday 9 to noon. Every office closes from 12 to 2. The clinic publishes auto injuries as a lane, diagnosis and a treatment plan after a crash, and says it reserves same-day appointment times daily for car accident injuries. Say it was a crash when you call, and say where. One call, one exam covers the rest.
The bright line on a rural road
Out on 94, help can be farther away than it is in town, which is a reason to take the emergency line more seriously, not less.
The bright line. Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic. Call 911. An injury clinic is built for planned care, and a clinic that sends you to the emergency room instead of booking you is the system working.