Fiery crash at a west-side gas station kills 18-year-old woman
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March 17, 2009 - 12:45 PM
BILL VOGRIN and LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTE
A woman pumping gas at a west-side convenience store burned to death Tuesday in a horrific crash after a truck hit the pumps, police officers and witnesses said.
Eighteen-year-old Whitney Hendrickson of Colorado Springs was killed in the fire at a 7-Eleven in the 1400 block of West Colorado Avenue, said police spokesman Lt. David Whitlock.
According to her Facebook page, Hendrickson graduated last year from Palmer High School and was attending Grinnell College, in Iowa.
Julie Podair, 19, of Appleton, Wis., was in the passenger seat of the 2000 Honda minivan Hendrickson was filling up at the time of the crash and escaped uninjured.
"In 28 years of doing this work and investigating traffic accidents, I've never seen a tragic accident like this," Whitlock said.
It could have been even worse — witnesses said someone ran to the store and hit an emergency shutoff button outside the store as soon as flames erupted.
Workers in nearby businesses and passers-by who heard and saw the crash about 12:40 p.m. rushed to try to help the woman but said they were driven back by flames shooting 20 feet in the air. They said they feared the pumps would explode.
Brittany Walker said she was driving west on Colorado when she heard a woman screaming "Help! Help!" She pulled over, got out of her car, and started telling other motorists on Colorado to stop and turn back.
"I was telling them that it could explode at any time," Walker said.
Within moments, at least one of the vehicles was ablaze, she said.
Witnesses said Hendrickson was outside the minivan pumping gas when a red Ford Explorer crashed into a Chevy pickup on the other side of the island, pushing it into the gas pump. The pump fell toward Hendrickson, trapping her against the van. Seconds later the pump went up in flames, sending a bright red and black fireball into the air and singeing the overhang over the gas pumps.
"It was at least 20 feet high," witness Scott Haycock said.
The Explorer driver, Kelli Renae McKay, 29, of Colorado Springs was treated at Memorial Hospital for bruises. McKay was ticketed on suspicion of careless driving involving a death, a Class 1 misdemeanor, Whitlock said.
Several witnesses reported hearing McKay say afterward that the brakes on her Explorer had gone out.
The driver of the pickup, 21-year-old Noel Gebarra of Colorado Springs was preparing to pull away from the pump at the time of impact. He was not injured, police said.
Greg Alderman of Trent Real Estate, across Colorado Avenue from the 7-Eleven, said he heard a crash and then his boss said over and over again, "Oh my God..."
"I jumped up and I took off running, " Alderman said. "It was just seconds after the impact and everything was already engulfed in flames."
Alderman sprinted across the street where he saw the young woman pinned between the burning gas pump and the minivan.
"She was standing there screaming, 'Help me! Help me! I'm going to die,'" he said.
Alderman said he tried to get to the woman, but the heat was too intense and he was afraid the pumps would explode.
The flames were out within 20 minutes of the crash and firefighters covered the van with a tarp.
Other witnesses described the same horrifying scene as Alderman: the sound of the crash followed by the sight of the fireball and the woman trapped in the flames.
"She was frozen in there, between the gas pumps and her car," said Michael Horvat, a health insurance broker who works across the street. "She was holding her face. Flames were all around her. She never got out."
He tried to approach the inferno with his extinguisher but an off-duty firefighter yelled at him to get back as the island erupted.
"All of a sudden the van erupted," Horvat said.
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$@#@#@#@ poor girl, it almost sounds like someone could have saved her....
