A 50-year-old Shobonier man has died in a fatal pickup-grain truck crash east of Vernon early Saturday night.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Department reports Lonnie Whipple, who was driving the pickup, failed to yield at a stop intersection while traveling northbound on Farthing Road at the Vermundy Road intersection. The driver’s side of the pickup was broadsided by a grain truck driven by 75-year-old Michael Johnson of Patoka. The sheriff’s department is still trying to positively identify a female passenger in the Whipple pickup.
Patoka and Sandoval Firemen had to extricate Whipple from the truck. They started CPR but when Life Star ambulance arrived it was determined Whipple had passed away. He was later pronounced dead on the scene by Deputy Coroner Feron Ice.
Coroner Troy Cannon said Whipple died from multiple injuries. There will be no autopsy, but toxicology samples were taken. An Air Evac helicopter had landed nearby to take Whipple to a regional hospital before he was pronounced dead.
The female passenger was freed from the pickup truck by those in the area and refused hospital treatment. Questions were later raised about her identity which at last report had not yet been answered.
Johnson was taken to SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Centralia for treatment of injuries.
The crash occurred at 5:35 Saturday night.
