This edition of the Journal is filed for the south side of St. Louis County: Affton, Crestwood, Sunset Hills, Concord, Mehlville, Oakville, Lemay, and the long commercial spine of Tesson Ferry Road between them. It is the part of the metro where the nearest Missouri Injury Clinic room sits, at 11144 Tesson Ferry Road, Suite 200, and it is the part of the metro the desk knows best. These are the notes.
Where south county gets hit
The Journal does not publish crash statistics it cannot source, and it will not invent a ranking of dangerous intersections. What it can say is what readers describe, and the pattern is consistent with the geography. South county has three kinds of road, and each writes a different entry in the joints.
The interstates. I-55 runs the length of the county from the river bend at Arnold up to the city, and I-270 crosses it at the south loop before climbing west past Sunset Hills toward I-44. Interstate crashes are rear-end and lane-change hits at speed, often in the stop-and-go that forms at the I-55 and I-270 interchange and again where I-55 narrows toward the city. Those are whiplash crashes, Entry 05, and bracing crashes, Entry 04. The brake lights stop moving, the hands lock, and the neck takes the whip.
The arterials. Lindbergh Boulevard, Tesson Ferry, Gravois, Lemay Ferry, and Telegraph are the big surface roads, lined with shopping centers and turn lanes. The arterial crash is the left turn across traffic and the rear-end at a signal, at thirty to forty miles an hour. These are belt shoulders, Entry 02, and dashboard knees, Entry 03. Lower speed, same joints.
The lots. South county is parking lots, and parking-lot crashes are the ones readers apologize for bringing up. Five miles an hour, a bumper that barely moved, a knee that bumped the dash. The Journal's position is that the joints do not check the speedometer. A dashboard knee at five miles an hour is still a dashboard knee, and the stairs will say so by Friday.
Where the emergency room is, and where the clinic is
The two are not the same trip, and the Journal wants the difference clear. Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic. South county has hospital emergency departments; if any of those symptoms are present, that is where you go, and a clinic will tell you the same thing on the phone.
The clinic is for the planned care that follows. An exam this week, findings on dated paper, a written plan, and the return visits that work the plan. Missouri Injury Clinic's Tesson Ferry room is on the corridor that connects Lindbergh to I-270 and I-55, which puts it within a short drive of every neighborhood named in this entry. Monday through Thursday 9am to 6pm, Friday 9am to 12pm, closed from 12 to 2 every day. The phone is (314) 530-5480.
What the desk hears from the south side
Three things, over and over. The first is the delay: readers wait because the crash was "minor," because the other driver was apologetic, because the car is already at the body shop and the body can wait its turn. It cannot. The joints are on their own schedule, described in Entry 01, and the schedule does not care about the repair estimate.
The second is the wrong joint. South county readers report the neck and the back, because those are the injuries everyone has heard of. They mention the shoulder, the wrist, or the knee only when asked, and often only after the desk explains the bracing line. The inventory exists to catch those.
The third is the commute. A reader who is hurt on I-55 in the morning drives the same road home that evening, and the same road the next day, with a neck that will not turn to check the blind spot. A plan that starts this week is also a plan that makes the commute safer sooner. That is not a slogan; it is what range of motion is for.
The rest of the metro
This is the South County edition, but the clinic has three rooms and they all run the same exam. Hazelwood covers north county at (314) 627-1411; O'Fallon covers St. Charles County at (636) 280-0990. If a reader in Oakville has a sister in Florissant who got hit on I-270 north, the instruction is identical: call the nearest room, say it was a crash, ask for an exam this week. Entry 09 has all three with hours.
Get the joints examined this week
Call the Tesson Ferry room, say it was a crash, and ask for an exam this week. Findings on paper, a written plan, and three rooms across the metro if south county is not your side of town.
Tesson Ferry (314) 530-5480 · Hazelwood (314) 627-1411 · O'Fallon (636) 280-0990
Advertising disclosure. This page is advertising. This desk is compensated for featuring Missouri Injury Clinic, and it is not the clinic, not a law office, and not a party to anyone's insurance claim. We publish only the lanes, rooms, and hours the clinic publishes on moinjuryclinic.com. We do not write reviews, rank providers, or give medical or legal advice. This entry is educational and is not medical advice.