Three people are dead after a violent crash in St. Clair County.
It happened just after noon Friday at the intersection Route 158 and Concordia Church Road, just south of Belleville.
An accident re-construction team was still working to find out what went wrong Friday evening.
The positioning of the Ford Escape, propped on a guard rail and on its side, speaks to the power of the impact.
The driver of the Ford Escape has been identified as 48-year-old Salem Alejandro from Belleville, IL. He was driving on a revoked license from a DUI conviction out of St. Clair County.
“For unknown reasons, he lost control of the wheel, swerved into oncoming traffic southbound, striking the driver of a maroon Chevy head on,” Illinois State Trooper Calvin Dye said.
The driver of the Chevy truck survived and has been identified as 74-year-old Donald Hess. He was airlifted to a hospital in St. Louis and is listed in critical condition. The two passengers in the truck who were killed have been identified as Hess' wife, 74-year-old Jerilyn Hess and their grandson, 24-year-old Christopher Craig.
The fatal crash shut down Illinois 158 just outside of Belleville for hours. Drivers were stopping to try to make sense of the mess.
“Somebody's going pretty darn fast. They must had to have been flying,” said Belleville Resident Bob Koesterer.
But right now it's too soon to tell if speed, or something else was involved.
Troopers said this is not an unfamiliar scene.
“Unfortunately,” said Dye, “we have a lot of serious injury and fatal crashes on this stretch of Illinois 158.”
Koesterer said the road can be tricky.
“It's more like an ‘S’, you know, you come through here and you take that turn and then you go around that way again,” he said.
