Two critical injuries were reported following an incident where an SUV crashed into the Fresenius Kidney Care Glendale Town Center, a dialysis center located in Glendale, early Saturday morning. According to ABC15, the crash occurred just before 7 a.m. near 43rd and Peoria avenues, where police say two women were struck by the vehicle and are now in a critical condition at the hospital.
The driver of the SUV stayed at the crash site and cooperated with law enforcement, as reported by officers on the scene. Running to a nearby clinic for dialysis at the time of the crash, Leah Cordova, who has frequented the center for the past two and a half years, recounted to Arizona's Family, "I honestly thought something had blown up, and I was like trying to look for somewhere to hide." Cordova was unharmed but highlighted the frequency of such crashes occurring at similar medical facilities and the urgent need for safety enhancements.
Particularly alarming is the assertion by the Storefront Safety Council, indicating a troublesome trend of storefront crashes, occurring more than 100 times daily nationwide. Rob Reiter, the council's co-founder, emphasized that dialysis centers, such as the one involved in the Glendale incident, tend to experience a higher number of these crashes. "This is a common health thing and if you have a center like this one that is unprotected and you have compromised drivers pulling up seven days a week, it’s bad practice. It’s not the standard of care to just leave people exposed," Reiter explained, suggesting strategies like bollards, rearranged parking lots, and better signage to mitigate risks.
In response to the collision, Fresenius Medical Care acknowledged the situation in a statement obtained by Arizona's Family: "On the morning of Saturday, June 21, an SUV accidentally drove into our Fresenius Kidney Care (FKC) Glendale Town Center dialysis center at 4407 W. Peoria Ave., injuring three people – one staff member and two patients – who were taken to the hospital." The organization further described immediate measures taken to administer aid, liaising with emergency responders, and offering support to affected staff and patients. Additionally, alternate arrangements for patient dialysis services were rapidly coordinated as investigations into the crash and evaluations of the facility's structural integrity continue.
