Patient, 95, is killed, 8 hurt as car hits an ambulance
An elderly Hatzolah ambulance patient died and eight other people suffered injuries after the emergency vehicle crashed and rolled in a Brooklyn collision Sunday.
The ambulance was struck by a 2002 Nissan Maxima at the corner of Schenectady Ave. and Avenue N in Flatlands just after 3 p.m. — pushing the rescue vehicle onto its side, police said.
The ambulance, which had six workers inside, was taking a 95-year-old woman to a nearby hospital, possibly after she suffered a heart attack, police sources said. She couldn’t be saved.
Edgar Salazar, 44, watched as the ambulance headed west on Avenue N, its lights and sirens on, as it passed through the intersection just as a yellow traffic light was turning red.
The Maxima was headed south on Schenectady.
“I don’t think this guy heard it, the way he come flying,” Salazar said of the Maxima’s driver.
“The ambulance tried to escape and go this way,” said Salazar. “When the car hit it, the ambulance just flipped.”
Video obtained by the Daily News shows the moment the Maxima plows into the ambulance and overturns it.
“I heard boom! When I came out I said wait a minute. Why are there so many people coming out?” said Yanique Lazarre, 67.
Several of the workers hoisted themselves out of the ambulance, sat atop it, and then climbed down from the flipped vehicle, she said.
“This is an accident-prone block,” said Lazarre’s daughter Melinda Lazarre, 41, whose car was hit while parked at the same intersection about a year ago. “When they come down Flatbush [Ave.], they fly. And this area has a lot of kids. We need a speeding camera.”
The ambulance workers, the Nissan’s 67-year-old driver and a passenger in the sedan all suffered minor injuries, cops said.
The crash remains under investigation.