New Bloomfield, MO — A semi-truck pulled out of a private driveway in a rural part of Callaway COunty (New Bloomfield) earlier this month and caused an accident that left several injured. Among the hurt were Latisha Thomas, 30, and Aaron Sauls, 28, both of whom where badly injured and rushed to University Hospital.
The accident I’m talking about happened on Monday, April 13, at about 4:45 p.m. in the afternoon — near the intersection of State Road PP and State Road BB.
Highway Patrol said that Aaron Sauls was driving a Ford pickup truck south along State Road BB, carrying Latisha Thomas and Audrey Sauls, 5, as passengers. Meanwhile, a semi-truck driven by Heather Deere, 31, was trying to pull onto State Road BB from a driveway.
According to the police report, Deere pulled onto the road and into Sauls’ path, causing a major collision. Both Aaron Sauls and Latisha Thomas were seriously injured while 5-year old Audry Sauls was only slightly injured.
Heather Deere and her passenger, 7-year old Jesse Conaway, were also slightly injured and had to be taken to a hospital as well. All the people involved in this accident are from Fulton.
So far, it doesn’t seem like any charges are being filed against Heather Deere, though the police report seems to imply that she did not yield to the Sauls’ pickup truck.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
Looking at the map above, you can tell that this stretch of the highway has a fairly good line of sight in either direction, so I’m really wondering why this semi-truck driver decided to pull into traffic without yielding. Was the truck backing up? Was the driver not paying attention? On her phone or messing with the radio?
There are some things here that I think need a little further investigation, because what I’ve from the Missouri State Highway Patrol just barely covers the details of what happened and doesn’t even begin to go into why the accident happened.
— Grossman Law Offices