Buffalo Grove trustee hurt in crash

Nursing an injured hand, Buffalo Grove Trustee Andrew Stein said he is "very glad to be still here" after a car crash Wednesday morning near Lincolnshire.

The 59-year-old said he was heading to Wisconsin for work in his SUV and was about to turn onto the Tri-State Tollway just before 8:30 a.m. when the crash occurred.

According to the Lake County sheriff's office, a preliminary investigation showed that Stein's 2018 Chevrolet Equinox, which had been traveling east on Route 22, was making a left on a green arrow onto a ramp to enter northbound I-94 when it was struck head on by a 2013 Ford E-150.

The driver of the van, Juan A. Lucio of Round Lake Beach, was traveling west on Route 22 and entered the intersection on a red light, the sheriff's office said.

"I slammed on the brakes and tried to avoid it, and he plowed into me. Spun the car around. The air bags deployed," Stein said.

When the car stopped, Stein briefly thought the car was going to catch fire, but what appeared at first to be smoke turned out to be powder from the air bags. He forced open the door, squeezed past the side air bag, and then lay on the grass along the side of the road and waited for the ambulance.

The sheriff's office said Stein was taken to Highland Park Hospital.

Stein said there's too much swelling now to determine whether he suffered a sprain or a break in his right hand, which is in a soft brace, and a new X-ray will be taken in two weeks. He suffered bruises and cuts on his left arm.

"I'm hoping it's just a bad sprain," he said.

The sheriff's office said both vehicles needed to be towed from the scene.

Lucio, of the 1400 block of Woodridge Drive, was not injured. The 43-year-old was cited for disobeying a traffic control signal and failure to reduce speed to avoid a crash. He is due in Round Lake Beach Branch Court at 3 p.m. June 10.