The south side and the Tesson Ferry room

South of Highway 40 and east of 270, the river city turns into a grid of brick: Tower Grove, Bevo, Holly Hills, Carondelet, then across the city line into Affton, Lemay, Mehlville, Oakville, Concord, Sappington, and out Tesson Ferry toward the Meramec. It is where a large share of the metro's working commutes begin, it is tied to downtown by I-55 and I-44, and it is where the clinic room this desk sits nearest to is located: 11144 Tesson Ferry Road, Suite 200, Saint Louis, MO 63123. This page is about that side of the map and that room.

The south side's roads

The interstates do the long hauls. I-55 runs along the river from the Jefferson County line through Oakville's and Lemay's catchment into south city and downtown. I-44 comes in from Fenton through Sunset Hills and Crestwood toward Kingshighway. I-270 ties the two together at the bottom of its loop. Between them run the arterials that carry the daily errands: Tesson Ferry, Lemay Ferry, Lindbergh, Gravois, Watson, Chippewa, Hampton, Kingshighway, Grand, Broadway.

The crashes this desk hears about from the south side are mostly arterial crashes: a stop-and-go tap on Lindbergh at Gravois, a left turn across Tesson Ferry at a strip center, a rear-end hit on Lemay Ferry at a light. Moderate speed, moderate damage, a driver who drove home. The 270 and 55 merge and the 44 and 270 knot in Sunset Hills supply the higher-speed ones. The corridors reads the whole metro.

A four-lane suburban commercial road in south St. Louis County on an overcast weekday morning, traffic signals on mast arms, a low brick office building set back behind a parking lot — A south county commercial road on an overcast morning: four lanes, mast-arm signals, a low brick building set back behind a lot. Tesson Ferry looks like this for most of its length.

The room at 11144 Tesson Ferry

Missouri Injury Clinic's South County room is at 11144 Tesson Ferry Road, Suite 200, Saint Louis, MO 63123. The direct line is (314) 530-5480. Hours are Monday through Thursday 9am to 6pm and Friday 9am to 12pm, closed daily from 12 to 2. The clinic publishes those hours on its own site, and the midday close is real, so aim the call for the morning or after 2.

It is the shortest drive for south city and most of south county, and a reasonable one for Affton, Crestwood, Sunset Hills, Fenton, Arnold, and the north end of Jefferson County. If you live north of Highway 40 or out in St. Charles County, the Hazelwood and O'Fallon rooms are closer. Three rooms across the metro lays all three out side by side.

Pick the room you can drive to this week. For the south side, that is Tesson Ferry.

What the room does

The same three lanes the clinic publishes everywhere: auto injuries, meaning diagnosis and a treatment plan after a crash; TBI and concussion rehabilitative therapy, with the tools the clinic names on its site, from vagus nerve stimulation at the tragus and neurofeedback to oculomotor and cognitive rehabilitation; and sports injuries, getting athletes back to training. Joseph L. Hollingsworth, DC, a chiropractor, runs the clinic. It is a chiropractic injury clinic, not a law office.

The first visit is the one this desk keeps coming back to: history, hands-on exam, findings, a written plan you can repeat out loud. The first visit, minute by minute describes it, and The dated record explains why the date on it matters.

What the south side hears

This desk's mail from the south side runs to a type. A driver on a fixed shift at a hospital, a warehouse, a school, or a shop gets tapped on the way home. The car is drivable. The driver feels fine and goes to work the next day. By the second or third day the neck is stiff enough to notice and the low back has joined in, and the question becomes whether to wait it out. The people who wait are very often the people who can least afford to be laid up a month later, and they are the people this report is written for.

The desk's answer is the same every time. Count three days. If anything is stiff, sore, foggy, or off, call Tesson Ferry, say it was a car crash, and get examined this week. If nothing is, call anyway if you can; a clean exam is short and it closes the question. The 72-hour lag is the reasoning behind that.

The south side's emergency rooms are not the clinicChest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic. The Tesson Ferry room is a planned-care clinic on business hours, not an emergency facility. Use the emergency door first when the emergency list applies, and bring the paperwork to the exam afterward.

Getting there

Tesson Ferry Road runs south from the Lindbergh and Gravois area through Concord and Sappington toward the Meramec. The room is in Suite 200 at 11144, in the 63123 zip. Call before you drive, especially on a Friday, when the room closes at noon, and plan around the 12 to 2 close every other day. If you already have an attorney, bring their contact so records can be sent where they need to go. If you do not, nothing about the exam changes.

Educational only. Nothing on this page is medical advice or a diagnosis; a licensed clinician who has examined you is the person to ask. Facts about the clinic come from moinjuryclinic.com. Emergency symptoms go to the emergency room, not to a clinic or a website.