CITY WORKER HIT IN PARKED VEHICLE

A Cape Girardeau city inspector, who only moments before had sat down in his vehicle on the side of the road, looked in his rearview mirror just in time to see a vehicle headed straight for his rear bumper.

"I saw the guy coming and thought he was pulling off on the shoulder behind me," John Landewee, a materials testing inspector in the city's engineering division, said of the accident Tuesday.

"But I knew he was coming too fast to stop," he said.

The vehicle hit the back of Landewee's vehicle with such force that it sent the vehicle with Landewee in it off a 4-foot embankment and into a ditch.

After being trapped in his vehicle as it lay on its side in the ditch, Landewee was extricated from the wreckage by members of the Cape Girardeau Fire Department. He was transported to Southeast Missouri Hospital, where he was treated for a small scrape and a sore neck and head and released.

"I was fortunate," Landewee said.

Landewee, who was parked on Big Bend Road, had just finished inspecting the pavement work at a site on Flint Hills Road and got back in his vehicle when the accident occurred shortly after 10:30 a.m. He was waiting for another inspector to relieve him at the site.

Cape Girardeau police reported the driver of the car, Paul Andres Pillow of Tamms, Ill., was traveling south on Big Bend Road when he said he fell asleep and struck Landewee's vehicle.

Pillow was issued a summons for not driving in a careful and prudent manner and failure to maintain financial responsibility, police said.