PUEBLO COUNTY, COLO. -- Colorado State troopers said a patient being taken to a hospital in an ambulance died late Thursday morning when an ambulance crashed into the back of a pickup truck, causing it to roll off the side of the road.
Around 11:55 a.m., an ambulance with a patient and two crew members was going west on Highway 50 near Avondale when it hit the back right side of a pickup truck that was stopped on the Highway trying to turn left at 51st Lane. The impact caused the ambulance to go off the road, rolling onto its side.
The patient, an elderly man, was flown by helicopter to Penrose Main Hospital in Colorado Springs, where he was declared dead about an hour after the crash.
The pickup was forced into oncoming traffic as a result of being hit, running into a Mercury SUV, which flipped onto its roof.
The two other people in the ambulance, a 26-year-old man and a 47-year-old man, as well as an 18-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman from the SUV, were all taken to St. Mary's Corwin Hospital, but troopers did not know how severe their injuries were.
The 23-year-old driver of the pickup was not hurt.
Highway 50 was closed in both directions to attend to the crash. It has since been reopened but is moving slowly do to an ongoing investigation.
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