Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Crash claims three lives
Car hit bus shelter before it ‘exploded’
Three people were killed on Sunday when a car struck a bus shelter in Hollywood. A plume of black smoke billowed from the wreckage and then the car burst into flames, one witness said. “It was burning so bad. I want to cry because I know there were people in there,” said Carlos De La Garza, who watched the car explode.
Hollywood — Three people were killed early Sunday when a car careened into a bus shelter and burst into flames, Hollywood Police said.
The fiery 6:36 a.m. crash at Hollywood Boulevard and North 35th Avenue involved two cars, one of which “was speeding westbound on Hollywood Boulevard and crashed into a turning vehicle.
“One vehicle became fully engulfed, and is believed to have had multiple occupants in it at the time,” police said in a news release.
Carlos De La Garza, the overnight attendant in the Chevron gas station and convenience store in intersection’s northwest corner, said he was mopping the floor when he heard a “strong noise, like the crash of a car.”
A plume of black smoke billowed from the wreckage, and then the car burst into flames, he said.
“The car exploded,” said De La Garza, who watched it out the front door.
Hollywood police were at the scene even before De La Garza could dial 911, he said. He grabbed a fire extinguisher on a post near the gas pumps, gave it to an officer, and then ran for a second extinguisher, he said.
Both he and the officer tried to douse the flames. “But the fire was too hot; we could not get
close,” said De La Garza, 50.
Surveillance video from the gas station showed a white car that had been traveling east on Hollywood Boulevard pull into the intersection and begin to make a U-turn when it was struck in the front by a darkcolored car speeding west.
It’s unclear how many people were in the two vehicles or whether anyone was at the bus shelter. Hollywood Police said one person in the white car sustained injuries that were not critical.
A woman who was driving the white vehicle appeared to have escaped serious injury, De La Garza said.
Hours after the crash, the nearby pavement was scorched, metal stanchions of the bus shelter were sheared off and shards of glass littered the area.
De La Garza said the crash left him shaken.
“I get scared,” he said. “It was burning so bad. I want to cry because I know there were people in there.”
The names of those involved in the crash have not been released.
“It was burning so bad.” Carlos De La Garza, overnight attendant at Chevron