Wrong-way driver injures Missouri highway worker

A highway worker was expected to leave the hospital this weekend after treatment for injuries sustained when a motorist driving the wrong way on Interstate 70 crashed into the worker’s vehicle, according to Missouri Department of Transportation officials.

Alfred Battle, a MoDOT night supervisor, sustained face and head injuries when the other vehicle hit his truck head-on about 3:45 a.m. Wednesday in Independence.

Battle was driving west on I-70 near Phelps Road, heading back to his office to do paperwork after leaving a crew cleaning a median barrier on the highway. A vehicle headed east in the westbound lanes hit his truck.

Battle underwent emergency surgery, said Markl Johnson, a MoDOT spokesman.

Johnson said Battle’s outlook for recovery was “pretty good.”

But, he added, “it’s going to take a while before he can come back to work.”

Johnson said that if there was a lesson in Battle’s injuries, it was the value of wearing a seat belt. “Just take Alfred as an example that when you wear your seat belt, you could be able to survive a wreck,” he said.

The other elements of Battle’s accident — the reckless driver and the inherent danger of highway work — are well known, Johnson said.

Battle’s accident occurred on a stretch of I-70, between Noland Road and Lee’s Summit Road, named for Clifton Scott, a 50-year-old MoDOT worker killed by a drunken driver while working at an accident scene in 2012.

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Wrong-way driver injures Missouri highway worker."