An Iowa man was identified on Monday as the victim in a fatal accident occurring the past weekend on Interstate 155 near Morton. Wilburn E. Cole, 79, originally of Keokuk was pronounced dead about 9:30 p.m. at the scene of the wreck, near the Broadway Road interchange.

It’s hard to withstand the impact of a head-on collision, especially on a highway where people are going well above 55-mph.

This was the case in Tazewell County this week, where Wilburn Cole was traveling the wrong way in the Southbound lanes of Interstate-155 near Morton, Illinois.

His step-daughter, Bobby Jo Pulliam, of Bloomington informed the police that Morton suffered from dementia. According to Pulliam, his family tried to get her step-dad off roads as he was missing stop signs and not using signals. She made this aware to Iowa highway officials, but they told her they could not do much.

This is sadly a fact in most states in the United States. In Illinois, the Secretary of State must be notified within 10 days of a dementia diagnosis but, only law enforcement can ask for an investigation into an unsafe driver.

Following the impact, an investigation is still pursuing. The police aren’t sure why Cole was driving the wrong way on a major highway. What they do know is that his car crashed into another vehicle head-on. The other driver was rushed to a hospital in nearby Peoria with life-threating injuries. Sadly, Cole did not survive the crash and was pronounced dead on the scene.

Thankfully, there was nobody else in the car with Cole. And only the one other vehicle was involved in the crash. There has been no official caused released by the authorities just yet. The police are still investigating the crash and toxicology reports are pending.

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