Pomona man remains critically injured after wreck with semi-trailer

Winifred McPherson saw it coming.

She threw her hands up in the air and cried, “no, no, no, please don’t let it happen!”

“I was petitioning God to intervene,” McPherson, Ottawa, said of the injury accident she witnessed Saturday on Eisenhower Road that left one man hospitalized.

McPherson was sitting at a stop sign when she saw a pickup truck driven by Max Ribeau, 71, Pomona, pull out from a stop sign near 23rd Street and Eisenhower Road and get struck by a semi-trailer.

“It was really scary because I saw the pickup truck and the semi truck and I just knew they were going to crash,” McPherson said. “Just seeing that pickup come and knowing they were going to crash.”

McPherson said she watched as Ribeau was cut from the car and taken by emergency medical service personnel to Overland Park Regional Hospital, where he remains in critical condition, a spokesperson from the hospital said.

“I had a hard time sleeping that night,” McPherson said. “It just happened so fast.”

McPherson said the accident scared her so much, she forgot to look behind her car before backing up from the stop sign to get out of the way. As a result, McPherson backed her 2005 Dodge Caravan into Ethel Plouffe’s 1993 Cadillac.

“I guess I should have looked,” McPherson said. “I was just kind of nervous and didn’t look back.”