A 50-year-old Mt. Vernon attorney was injured after her car apparently ran off the road and struck a tree attempting to avoid a deer in the rural Texico area Wednesday night. By the time emergency help arrived, Nicole Villani was not around the vehicle on North Snapdragon Lane.
Jefferson County Chief Deputy Blaine Uhls says a four-hour search followed that included first the Mt. Vernon Police Department’s drone and later a state police airplane. Villani was eventually located when going to the door of a home on East Middle Road a quarter-mile away. Uhls believes Villani was probably trying to walk the half-mile to her home and went the wrong direction.
Uhls says Villani no longer had shoes on and had other indications of frostbite from being out in the 24 to 28-degree temperatures overnight. She was initially taken by ambulance to SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital in Mt. Vernon and later transported to a St. Louis Hospital.
The Jefferson County Fire Protection District joined Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputies, State Police, and Mt. Vernon Police in the search. The ILEAS mobile command vehicle was also used.
The crash was initially reported to 911 by the Onstar unit in Villani’s car.
Villani is a former Jefferson County State’s Attorney and Circuit Court Judge. She is now in private practice.
