A three-vehicle crash involving an ambulance on West Grant Road at Interstate 10 early Sunday left three people dead and six injured, according to police.
Andres E. Hernandez, 20, of Tucson, and Luis C. Sanchez, 25 were both pronounced dead at the scene. Sanchez might be from Douglas, said Tucson Police Department Officer Charles Rydzak.
A 71-year-old man also was killed but police are not releasing his name until they can locate next of kin.
Tucson Police Department Sgt. Mark Robinson gave the following account:
Around 4 a.m. a Southwest Ambulance carrying the driver, a non-emergency patient, a medic and the 71-year-old man — who was a friend or relative of the patient — was traveling west on Grant in the median lane, which is the thru lane under I-10.
A late-model silver Dodge Charger carrying four men — with Hernandez driving and Sanchez in the front passenger seat and two men riding in the back, also possibly in their early 20s — was traveling south on the frontage road that runs down the west side of the freeway.
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The Charger ran into the ambulance, knocking it onto its passenger side. The Charger continued to slide until it hit a half-ton pickup truck that was stopped at a red light in the eastbound lane of Grant. An 18-year-old man was inside the pickup truck, which was jerked around 90 degrees by the impact so that it ended up facing south.
When everything came to rest, the Charger was against the driver’s side of the pickup truck, and the ambulance was on its side, touching the back of the Charger.
Hernandez and Sanchez were dead at the scene, as was the 71-year-old man, who had been seatbelted into the front passenger seat of the ambulance.
The bodies of Hernandez and Sanchez had to be extricated from the Charger with special equipment.
“I would describe it as a horrific impact,” Robinson said. Police were still clearing the scene after 10 a.m.
The driver of the pickup truck, the ambulance patient and the medic attending to the patient were “not seriously injured,” he said, and the ambulance driver was injured but it was not thought to be life-threatening.
The two rear passengers in the Dodge Charger were injured, one with life-threatening injuries.
All six survivors of the crash were transported to a local hospital.
Though the pickup truck’s light was red, the ambulance’s light was not, according to preliminary investigation. Hernandez appears to have run a red light, and witnesses as well as roadway evidence indicate he was speeding as well, Robinson said.
Police are investigating whether Hernandez had been drinking. Alcohol does not appear to have been a factor for the ambulance driver or the pickup truck driver.
The Southwest Ambulance employees had been released by the middle of Sunday.
“Obviously, our hearts go out to the families that are affected by this tragedy, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement’s investigation,” said Anne-Marie Braswell, a spokeswoman for Rural/Metro Fire Department, which owns Southwest Ambulance.
The Southwest employees are doing well physically, she said. “I’m sure that mentally, they are quite shaken.”
She didn’t have any further information about the other people who were injured in the wreck.
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