Deputies respond to two injury crashes, one leads to DUI arrest
Two Wednesday wrecks sent one driver to Stormont Vail and ended with a DUI arrest after a car hit a guard rail and landed in a corn field.
Atchison County deputies answered two injury crashes Wednesday, and the second one ended with a suspected DUI arrest after a car left the road, hit a guard rail and road signs, and came to rest in a ditch in a corn field near Finny Road.
The first wreck was reported around 3:50 p.m. on U.S. Highway 59 near Cummings. The driver was identified as 36-year-old Tina Scherer of Valley Falls, and the sheriff’s office said the crash was one of two Wednesday incidents that left people hurt. MSC News later reported that Scherer suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken by Atchison County EMS to Stormont Vail in Topeka for treatment.
A few hours later, around 6:45 p.m., deputies were called to 286th Road near Finny Road. Investigators said a car driven by 32-year-old Shyann Stepp of Huron left the roadway, struck a steel guard rail and road signs, and stopped in a ditch in a corn field. Stepp was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and booked into the Atchison County Jail.
The sheriff’s office described one of the crashes as deer-related and the other as an alleged impaired-driving wreck, putting two of the county’s most familiar rural road hazards on display in the same day. On long stretches such as U.S. Highway 59 and the county roads east of Atchison, a collision can turn into an emergency response quickly, especially when vehicles leave the pavement and end up in ditches or fields.
Atchison County Sheriff’s Office figures show why those calls can strain a small rural agency. The county covers 431 square miles and serves an estimated 16,249 citizens, with deputies often covering wide gaps between calls on highways and farm roads. Wednesday’s wrecks again put that workload in focus, with one crash sending a patient to Topeka and the other ending in a jail booking tied to suspected impaired driving.
For motorists moving through Atchison County this summer, the immediate warning is plain: wildlife encounters can trigger serious wrecks, and suspected drunk driving can turn a routine trip into an arrest and a crash scene within minutes.
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