THREE-CAR ACCIDENT ON FRIDAY DELAYS TRAFFIC CROSSING BRIDGE

Two vehicles collided head-on early Friday morning on the Mississippi River Bridge at Cape Girardeau. Following the accident, a third vehicle also crashed into one of the vehicles.

The accident tied up traffic on both the Missouri and Illinois sides of the bridge for more than 20 minutes, police estimated.

A Cape Girardeau woman, Carol Ann Christopher, 35, of 525 Themis, Apt. A, was issued summonses charging her with driving while intoxicated and failure to drive on the right half of the roadway, a Cape Girardeau police spokesman said.

Police said Christopher was westbound on the bridge when her 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass crossed the center line and hit a GMC S-15 Jimmy driven eastbound by Mark A. Conrad, 25, of 20 Pindwood.

Stephanie Lossing, 18, of Sikeston was also headed west, and could not stop her car, after cresting an incline on the bridge, said police. She struck the two wrecked vehicles on the bridge.

Police put the time of the accident at 2:33 a.m.

A passenger and cousin of Conrad's, Charles Conrad, of Highway D in Jackson, was taken to St. Francis Medical Center, where he was treated and released, according to the spokesman. He said Christopher also was treated and released at a Cape Girardeau hospital.

Neither Mark Conrad nor Lossing appeared to be injured and did not seek medical treatment, said the officer who worked the accident, Patrolman Barry Hovis.

"The two who had the head-on collision they were lucky not to be killed," he said. "There was a lot of damage to the vehicles."

"They hit so hard that it knocked the bumper and the radiator off of Christopher's car." The collision nearly knocked a wheel off the Conrad vehicle, he said.

Both vehicles had to be towed from the scene, said Hovis.

Hovis estimated that traffic backed up from the Illinois side of the bridge about one-half to three-quarters of a mile. On the Missouri side, he estimated, the line of traffic stretched about one-quarter to one-third of a mile.

Christopher was also charged with failure to use a seat belt.