CALGARY – A horrific crash has shut down one of Calgary’s busiest roads Friday night.
One person is confirmed dead and two others injured.
The SUV somehow ended up slamming straight into a tree.
Police say the crash happened after a the driver fled from police.
An officer in a marked police vehicle was driving northbound along 36th street S.E. through 8th avenue when they saw a suspicious 2003 black Lincoln Aviator.
The officer turned on their lights and sirens to try to pull over the SUV.
The driver didn’t stop and fled along 36th street and then eastbound on Memorial Drive.
The driver of the SUV lost control and collided with a tree at Memorial Drive and 44th street S.W.
The skidded across the front lawn before mowing down two really big hedges, then crashing into the tree, which it wrapped around.
The driver, a man in his 20’s, was pronounced dead at the scene. He was crushed to death.
Another man in his early twenties was thrown outside from the vehicle and a teenage girl was badly injured in the backseat. Both were transported to hospital in critical condition.
For Esmat Ahmed, a witness, the scene is now a garden of upsetting memories.
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“We try to pull the door open for the girl at the back and we laid her down, trying to lay her on her back. She was complaining of back pain, her back hurt,” Ahmed said.
He and another witness worried the SUV would catch fire.
EMS says the girl and the young man thrown from the SUV were both conscious, with soft-tissue and possible internal injuries.
“They were both taken to hospital, foothills hospital, by paramedics in serious, and potentially life-threatening condition at that time, just given the multiple injuries they did sustain,” Adam Loria from EMS said.
Calgary Police and ASIRT continue to investigate.
“I feel sorry for their families. It’s right here (hits chest), you know,” a neighbour said.
“It’s traumatizing to known that there was somebody passed away on our front lawn, it’s very hard on my son as well as myself.”
The crash sling-shotted broken branches into the side of a duplex.
The SUV came to a stop steps from several front doors.
“I was afraid for my own kids. I even told them we are lucky. It was just right there, could have hit our house before anything else,” Ahmed said.
BELOW: SUV collides with tree along Memorial drive in the NE
Memorial drive was closed between 44 St. & 52 St.NE until well past midnight.
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