AIRBAG MADE DIFFERENCE, SAYS OFFICERS IN COMPARING HEAD-ON CRASH INJURIES

Eighty-six-year-old Glen Hindman was returning home to Anna, Ill. having just enjoyed his usual Sunday dinner of Chinese food in Cape Girardeau. Hindman, who used to coach elderly people on their driver's exams, probably was using the cruise control on his '86 Chevrolet Celebrity as he entered the McClure city limits headed north.

Violet Hazelwood, an Indianapolis, Ind., woman driving a 1992 Oldsmobile Delta 88, was going in the opposite direction on Illinois Route 3.

Somehow, Hindman's vehicle got into the wrong lane. At 1:40 p.m. June 13, the two cars collided on a sweeping curve in front of Jim's Market in what Trooper Roger Cox called "the most perfect head-on collision I've ever seen. It was a direct kiss."

When Cox arrived at the scene after a 24-minute drive from headquarters in Ullin, rescue workers were still trying to extricate Hindman from his car. Hazelwood, meanwhile, was sitting upright and speaking.

"The lady was not injured to any extent at all," the Illinois State Police trooper said. "I was not at that time sure (Hindman) was going to survive."

The crucial difference between their injuries, the trooper said, appeared to be that Hazelwood's car was equipped with an air bag and Hindman's wasn't.

"What was spectacular, and everyone who was there was impressed, was the way that air bag worked," Cox said.

Hazelwood literally walked away from the accident. She had a small laceration on her knee caused by the car key.

Hindman, meanwhile, sustained facial lacerations caused by the steering wheel. A helicopter flew him to St. Francis Medical Center.

He was admitted in critical condition. A week and a day later, he remains in the hospital's intensive care unit in serious condition.

"They said he was holding his own," Cox said.

So far, neither driver has been able to tell police how the accident occurred. Hazelwood can't remember. "That's not unusual from the trauma of such accidents," Cox said.

Hindman is on a respirator and has not been able to talk with the investigator.

Cox theorizes that Hindman's car could have entered the wrong lane "for any number of reasons." Those include being temporarily blinded by sunlight, momentarily falling asleep after a meal, or highway hypnosis.

Neither car was traveling at excessive speed, Cox says. The posted speed limit in McClure is 50 mph.

When two cars traveling at 50 mph collide head-on, the impact is the same as a single car crashing into a brick wall at 100 mph.

"In a head-on collision, you don't have to be going very fast to go through the windshield," Cox said.

Head-on collisions account for 60 percent of all auto accidents with serious injuries or fatalities.

Fortunately, both drivers were wearing seat belts. "That's probably the primary reason he's not dead," Cox said.

The front of Hazelwood's vehicle was smashed in. Hindman's Chevrolet had a bit more damage, including a rumpled hood. But both driver's compartments and windshields remained intact.

"I have seen accidents with far less damage and people in bad shape, especially head-on," Cox said.

A trooper for 10 years, Cox had never before handled a head-on collision in which an air bag deployed. "This makes a believer out of me," he said.