Copyright 2006 The Denver Post
All Rights Reserved
By FELISA CARDONA
The Denver Post
BOULDER, Colo. - A talented 16-year-old photographer and soccer player who made friends across all cliques at Boulder High School died after the car she was driving collided with an ambulance Monday evening.
Hannah Nicole Bauer Boemker of Lafayette was driving her black Honda Civic from her part-time job at Golden West, a senior housing complex, when the accident happened.
Boemker was driving east on Euclid Avenue, attempting to go north on 30th Street as the Pridemark ambulance with lights and sirens blaring was headed south on 30th Street responding to a fire call, police said. The fire turned out to be a false alarm, said Pridemark president Michael Donner.
The intersection is controlled by stop signs for motorists headed east and west but not north and south, which is the direction the ambulance was headed, police said.
Boemker was taken to a hospital, where she died. A paramedic who was a passenger injured his knee and was later sent home from the hospital. The other paramedic, who was driving, was not injured, but Donner said he was emotionally shaken.
“It’s tough,” Donner said Tuesday. “They respond to emergencies; they do not want to be involved in them. The events of last evening have profoundly affected our entire company.”
There has not been a preliminary finding of what caused the accident, and the investigation could take several days to complete, said Boulder police spokeswoman Julie Brooks.
Monday’s accident marked the first fatal accident involving one of Pridemark’s ambulances since the company began service nine years ago, Donner said.
When contacted Tuesday, Boemker’s family members said they did not want to talk about the tragedy.
At least 60 students who “traveled in very different circles” at Boulder High sought counseling upon hearing of her death, said principal Bud Jenkins.
Boemker’s sister Caitlin graduated from Boulder High in 2004, and her brother, Ethan, is a ninth-grader there.
Photography teacher Dave Blessing told Jenkins that Boemker was his “prized student.”
On Boemker’s MySpace.com Web page, she names her parents and siblings as her heroes and says she was a bad speller but a good writer.
“I defy the stereotype of the typical teenager: I don’t drink or smoke, I don’t obsess over drama and strive to look how society says I should,” she wrote. “I don’t really have a lot of friends, but what matters to me is the bonds and love I share with the friends I do have.”