A 51-year-old driver was killed and two other people were hurt Wednesday afternoon when his SUV slammed into a stopped car, then another vehicle, a pedestrian and finally a building in West Philadelphia. Police say the crash touched off in rapid succession just before 1:30 p.m., leaving a trail of damage along Westminster Avenue before the driver was pronounced dead at a hospital.
According to 6abc.com, the crash happened at the intersection of North 52nd Street and Westminster Avenue. That account differs from NBC10 Philadelphia, which placed the crash in the 1500 block of Westminster Avenue with police responding at approximately 1:29 p.m., and from a report by Telemundo62, which put the collision in the 5100 block of Westminster Avenue around the same time. The exact location has not been reconciled across the available reports.
Police say a Chevrolet Traverse was traveling westbound on Westminster Avenue, driven by the 51-year-old man, when it struck the rear of a Nissan Sentra that was stopped at a red light, per the preliminary investigation. The Chevrolet then struck a Lexus traveling eastbound before leaving the roadway altogether, striking a pedestrian and coming to rest against a building, the station's report states.
Driver Pronounced Dead at Penn Presbyterian
The Chevrolet's driver was transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at about 2:12 p.m., according to police. He has not been publicly identified. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, per the same account.
The Nissan Sentra's driver was evaluated at the scene and released without being taken to a hospital. The Lexus driver was transported to Lankenau Medical Center and was listed in stable condition, the report notes.
Pedestrian Injury Confirmed, Earlier Reports of Multiple Victims Unresolved
The pedestrian struck by the Chevrolet was transported to Einstein Medical Center with a leg injury. The initial report from the scene indicated that multiple pedestrians were injured, but so far only one pedestrian injury has been confirmed, the outlet reported.
Philadelphia tracks fatal crashes and their investigative outcomes through a dataset maintained by the city's Accident Investigation Unit, which is refreshed nightly and covers records dating back to January 1, 2019, according to OpenDataPhilly. The same source cautions that this dataset and separate crash-location data from OTIS should not be compared or combined without caution, since the two may represent different crash locations.
Wednesday's crash adds to a string of recent multi-vehicle collisions in the Philadelphia area. A 16-vehicle crash in Havertown left one person dead and nearly a dozen others injured, as reported by FOX 29 Philadelphia, while a charter school teacher was separately killed after being struck by a vehicle in Center City, according to 6abc Philadelphia. No further details on the cause of Wednesday's West Philadelphia crash have been released, and investigators have not indicated when their review will conclude.
