By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A 22-year-old St. Joseph man drowned at Smithville Lake on Independence Day.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reports Carlos Antonio walked off a ledge into the water and never resurfaced. Antonio was not wearing a life jacket, according to the patrol, which reports the fatality happen near Little Platte Swim Beach at Smithville Lake.
Antonio was one of four drownings reported by the patrol over the July Fourth Holiday Counting Period, which ran from Friday evening at six o’clock until midnight on Independence Day.
The patrol reported eight traffic fatalities over the long holiday weekend, including four in northwest Missouri. Buchanan County Medical Director, Dr. Scott Hall, died when he lost control of all-terrain-vehicle while riding north on a county road three miles south of Bethany just after noon on Independence Day. Hall’s wife suffered minor injuries and a one-year-old suffered moderate injuries in the accident.
The patrol reports a double fatality accident in Caldwell County the morning of the 4th.
According to the Missouri Highway Patrol, two Falls City, Nebraska residents died in a crash at Highway 36 and Missouri 13 in Hamilton when 70-year-old Ricky Nutzman attempted to merge onto east Highway 36 from the Hamilton interchange and cut in front of a semi-tractor trailer. The truck hit Nutzman’s SUV, killing him and his passenger, 70-year-old Susan Nutzman.
A 13-year-old Bethany boy died, two others suffered serious injuries, in a single vehicle wreck on US Highway 136 on Saturday, a mile west of Stanberry in which the vehicle overturned several times.