By Kieran Nicholson
The Denver Post
DENVER — A woman was killed and three people injured early this morning when an ambulance crashed into a car at the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard and York Street.
Police say the ambulance was westbound on MLK with lights and sirens about 3:00 a.m. when a white Cadillac sedan crossed the intersection without yielding.
The ambulance broadsided the Cadillac, pushing it onto 32nd, where it hit a bus stop bench.
A pedestrian was either on the sidewalk or the bench, police say, and the Cadillac hit her.
Two paramedics in the ambulance who were injured in the crash nevertheless jumped to attend to the woman, but she was pronounced dead.
There was no patient in the ambulance.
Reuben Gregory, 32, who lives nearby on
York Street, said he heard the sirens and then the loud bang and impact of twisting metal.
Gregory said he hurried to the intersection and the paramedics were talking to each other, checking to see if they were ok. They then began attending the woman whose body was on the ground.
“They went over to the body even though they were pretty shook up themselves,” Gregory said.
The paramedics also checked inside the Cadillac but it was obvious they couldn’t get at the driver because the car was so mangled, Gregory said.
“It was pretty scary,” Gregory said. “Everything was smoking.”
The driver of the Cadillac, who is suspected of drunk driving, was taken to a hospital. He was the only person inthe car.
Conditions of the driver and the paramedics were not immediately available.
Morning traffic through the intersection is being diverted.