One dead, another injured after fatal crash on I-55

BENTON, Mo. -- A tractor-trailer struck a car being pushed by two men Monday evening on Interstate 55 south of Benton, killing one of the men and sending the other for treatment at Saint Francis Medical Center, Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter said.

The crash took place about 8 p.m., blocking southbound traffic. Motorists were diverted from I-55 at mile marker 80 and detoured through Benton on U.S. 61, Walter said.

The survivor of the two men told responders the car had run out of gas and the two were pushing it along the emergency lane, Walter said. When they approached a bridge overpass near Blodgett, Mo., the road narrows and the truck struck the car from behind.

The cab of the truck came to rest on its side on the left side of the roadway. The driver sustained bruises and cuts, Walter said.

Missouri Department of Transportation spokeswoman Nicole Thieret said the crash could tie up southbound traffic for up to 8 hours. There was no disruption of traffic in the northbound lanes, she said.

Electronic message boards on the highway were displaying warnings to traffic headed south through Cape Girardeau, she said.

The traffic tie-up was expected to take several hours to clear because of the need to do crash reconstruction and wreckage removal, Thieret said.