By David Reynolds
The Star-News
WILMINGTON, N.C. — A pickup truck driver broadsided a van filled with people Wednesday afternoon at the intersection of Carolina Beach Road and Shipyard Boulevard.
The wreck sent approximately a dozen people to two area hospitals, according to Battalion Chief Jon Mason of the Wilmington Fire Department.
More than a dozen firefighters and EMS workers swarmed around the van after the midday wreck, cutting metal and loading people onto stretchers.
Officer J.D. Smith of the Wilmington Police Department’s Traffic Unit said authorities suspect some in the van sustained broken bones, though he didn’t think any of the injuries were life-threatening. He approximated the number of injured at eight.
The wreck occurred around 12:30 p.m. as the white van headed west on Shipyard Boulevard toward the port, Smith said.
The driver of a 1992 Ford pickup, headed south on Carolina Beach Road, ran a red light and hit the van on the passenger side, Smith said.
The wreck caused heavy front-end damage to the pickup truck, but the driver wasn’t seriously injured, police said.
The wreck shut down part of Shipyard Boulevard and slowed lunchtime traffic along Carolina Beach Road.
A crowd gathered and watched as EMS workers from the Wilmington Fire Department unloaded stretcher after stretcher at the scene. Some EMS workers climbed inside the van. They pulled out the injured and carried most away on stretchers.
One of the bystanders, James Monk, 50, said the van was a shuttle, which had recently left Coastal Horizons Center Inc., a treatment center nearby.
Monk said he often rides the shuttle and that it usually carries about eight or nine people.
Mason, of the fire department, said the injured were taken to both New Hanover Regional Medical Center and Cape Fear Hospital.
After the incident, Mason said firefighters and EMS workers handled a chaotic situation well. He also said EMS workers train for emergencies with numerous victims.
Smith, of WPD, said the pickup truck driver, Daniel Wooten, 23, of Wilmington was ticketed on an allegation of running a red light.
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