A 23-year-old Rolla woman was killed early Saturday after her sport-utility vehicle ran off County Road 1000 and overturned about a quarter-mile east of Highway B near the Huffman Garden Center in Phelps County. The crash happened around 2:10 a.m., and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The SUV struck a mailbox and a tree, then a culvert, before it came to rest overturned. Troopers said she was ejected from the vehicle and was not wearing a seatbelt.
Troopers' crash report
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol crash report, as reported by KSDK, the driver was operating a 2013 Cadillac SRX eastbound on County Road 1000 when the SUV left the roadway and overturned. The report details the sequence of impacts and notes that the driver was ejected and pronounced dead at the scene. Troopers are still working to determine what led up to the crash.
Where it happened
Huffman Garden Center lists its address as 18148 County Road 1000 in St. James. That stretch of county road is largely rural, where single-vehicle rollovers can turn especially serious because trees, mailboxes and drainage structures sit close to the edge of the pavement.
Seat belts and ejection
Troopers said the driver was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected during the rollover, a combination that all too often has fatal consequences. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that lap-and-shoulder belts reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat occupants by about 45% and cut the risk of serious injury roughly in half. Safety officials regularly point to numbers like these when urging drivers and passengers to buckle up, particularly on rural roads where rollovers can quickly turn deadly.
Investigation ongoing
Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers continue to investigate the single-vehicle crash, and no additional details about the driver's identity or the circumstances have been released beyond the crash report. KSDK reported the patrol's findings, and this story will be updated if troopers release more information.
