Uncle says trooper hit by motorist in Collinsville has long, tough road to recovery

The 30-year-old trooper who was struck by a tractor-trailer March 21 on Interstate 55 near Collinsville while he was working a traffic accident has a long tough road ahead to recovery from the serious injuries he sustained.

As a result of this and 13 other accidents involving state troopers so far this year, Illinois State Police Acting Director Brendan Kelly said the agency will step up enforcement of Scott’s Law, or the so-called “move over law.”

Kelly was in Collinsville on Wednesday to discuss the efforts. It was a repeat of a press conference he held Monday in Chicago and Tuesday in Springfield on the subject. The ISP is going to increase enforcement time specifically targeted to Scott’s Law, named after Lt. Scott Gillen, who was struck and killed by a drunken driver in 2000 while working a crash scene.

Without identifying the trooper publicly who was struck and seriously injured last week on I-55, his uncle, a former Illinois State Police trooper, said he has seen the sad and tragic results on both sides, as a former trooper and as a family member of a trooper who was seriously injured while working a traffic scene.

Don Buckley, speaking from a conference room at ISP regional headquarters in Collinsville, said in his 26 years of working as a state trooper, “I saw far too much of this. Countless times I encountered these situations and sometime with individuals lost their lives,” he said.

“When I got that phone call from my sister about my nephew, my heart stopped momentarily waiting for her to say whether he was alive. She was pretty quick to say he was alive,” Buckley said.

Buckley’s nephew was airlifted from the accident scene to a hospital with serious injuries. “He has a long, very tough road ahead of him.”

“These type of accidents are preventable,” Buckley said.

Kelly said, “It took some time for people to get it when it came to the importance of using seat belts.” Using the current personnel the agency already has, Kelly said 2,000 more hours will be used strictly to have more visibility of troopers who will be focusing on Scott’s Law violators.

The additional man hours will cost the agency about $150,000, Kelly said. He said the 2019 budget will allow for the additional expense.

Already this year, 14 troopers statewide have been struck by vehicles and three of the troopers have died. So far this year, nearly 500 citations have been issued for Scott’s law violations. In 2018, nearly 200 citations were issued to Scott’s law violators, Kelly said. Most of the troopers were struck by vehicles while working on Interstates.

There is no specific data that shows a particular time, they are occurring, where they are happening or if weather was a factor. He said the troopers are doing everything their training has taught them to do, “but people are not paying attention. They are distracted,” Kelly said.

“There’s nothing more important than the life of a trooper,” Kelly said. He said ISP is working with a couple of legislators to tweak Scott’s Law as it currently appears on the books to give it stronger language that will make punishments for violators more severe.

This story was originally published March 27, 2019 at 2:07 PM.