Windshield smashed by rock thrown at car on I-255, O’Fallon man injured
Brandi Matheis and her ex-husband were cruising south on Interstate 255 through Cahokia Heights Monday night when a rock was thrown onto the front windshield of her car..
There was a loud crashing sound and the windshield on the passenger side was severely cracked.
The rock did not go through the windshield but shards of glass hit Paul Earnest, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. He suffered cuts on his face, chest, arms and legs but did not need to go to a doctor.
While Earnest didn’t have serious injuries, there have been cases across the country where motorists have been killed by objects thrown onto vehicles.
“It was very shocking,” said Matheis, who is from O’Fallon.
“I yelled ‘Are you OK?’ and I looked at him,” she said. “He was just kind of in shock.”
Matheis said the collision had occurred moments after she had moved to the right lane to avoid several rocks piled in the middle lane at about 10:30 p.m.
She believes someone threw the rock from the side of highway where I-255 crosses over Illinois 163, which is just south of Illinois 15 in Cahokia Heights. She also believes the rocks were placed on the roadway in an effort to force motorists over to the side where they could more easily be struck.
“My thought was, ‘I’m not stopping on this highway anywhere near where that happened,’” she said.
She was only a few miles from where they were going to make an Uber Eats delivery so she continued driving to that location in Dupo.
They then went to the northbound side of I-255 to meet a state trooper before they headed home.
Illinois State Police confirmed that a trooper had taken a report about a rock smashing a windshield on I-255 Monday night. No arrests were made.
Sgt. Melissa Albert-Lopez said in an email the agency doesn’t have statistics about the number of times rocks or debris have been thrown at vehicles.
Matheis said the trooper she met said there had been previous reports of rocks thrown at vehicles in the area.
After her nerve-racking experience, she wants others to know about the risk.
Collinsville-based Troop 8 will “remain vigilant in the area,” Albert-Lopez said. She urged motorists to call 911 if they see anyone throwing items at vehicles.
Unusual night for Uber team
Although they are divorced, Matheis and Earnest still work together to make Uber Eats deliveries. On Monday night, Matheis was driving Earnest’s 2017 Hyundai Elantra and he was making the deliveries to customers’ doors. Matheis, 50, also is a corporate recruiter for health care organizations.
“It happened so quickly,” Matheis said of the smashed window. “It seemed like so much happened at the same time in that small amount of time.”
In one instant, she thought that she ran over a rock and it just popped up to the windshield.
“Then I realized, no that couldn’t have happened,” she said. “Then I thought somebody just threw a rock at the windshield.”
Matheis said she was going about 60 mph when the rock her the windshield and she fears the damage would have been worse if she was driving 65 to 70 mph.
Matheis and Earnest were not sure exactly where on I-255 the rock was thrown so they retraced their route on Tuesday night. That’s when they realized that the rock tossed at them occurred where I-255 crosses Illinois 163.
They went down to Illinois 163 and found pieces of broken concrete and fencing that was pulled apart so someone could easily walk up from Illinois 163 to the interstate.
A Belleville News-Democrat photographer went to the area on Wednesday and also saw a broken fence.
A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Transportation said Wednesday she would check with the maintenance department to see if the broken fences were the responsibility of IDOT.
Previous rock throwing cases
In St. Louis last month, a 51-year-old man was arrested after at least 10 vehicles were damaged by rocks and other objects thrown from the Jamieson Avenue overpass of Interstate 44, according to a report by KSDK-Channel 5. The man was charged with assault, property damage and possession of a controlled substance.
An ABC News report states a 32-year-old man was killed in Michigan when a rock was thrown off an overpass through the windshield of a van traveling on Interstate 75 in 2017. Five teenagers were prosecuted in this case.
A 33-year-old Texas woman was killed in 2019 when a large rock crashed through the windshield of her boyfriend’s vehicle where she was riding in the front passenger seat, according to CNN. The rock was thrown from a railroad overpass on Interstate 35 and no arrests were made.
Three Colorado teenagers were arrested and later convicted in the death of a 20-year-old woman who was hit by a landscaping rock thrown from a moving vehicle into her car in 2023, according to an ABC News affiliate in Denver. One of the suspects, who is now 21, was convicted on a murder charge for throwing the rock shotput style out of the vehicle he was driving. He was given a life sentence.
