PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An ambulance driver faces DUI charges, and a 1-month-old girl is dead following a crash in Frankford on Sunday morning.
Philadelphia police said the crash happened around 5:15 a.m. at the intersection of Torresdale and Harbison avenues.
Investigators said a privately operated ambulance, carrying the infant and her mother, was speeding south on Torresdale Avenue when it ran a red light at Harbison Avenue and struck the driver’s side of a 2010 Honda Accord traveling east with a green light.
The ambulance was not operating with lights or sirens activated at the time.
Police said the impact ejected the infant and her mother through the ambulance’s front windshield. Both were found unresponsive on the roadway.
They were transported to Albert Einstein Medical Center, where the infant was pronounced dead. The mother suffered severe head trauma and is in critical condition.
Police said they were initially responding to a separate call for an unresponsive infant at a home on the 6600 block of Ditman Street. Before officers arrived, family members left in a private ambulance to try to take the infant to the hospital.
The 25-year-old driver of the Honda refused medical treatment at the scene.
Police transported the 51-year-old ambulance driver, who was behind the wheel of a white 2014 Mercedes-Benz, to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital. He faces DUI and related charges.