Thirteen people were injured, including a 9-year-old girl, when a van ran a red light and slammed into a CTA bus in an intersection Sunday afternoon on Chicago’s West Side, authorities said.
The crash occurred at about 4 p.m. when a northbound maroon-color van drove through the light and hit the driver’s side of the westbound bus at Chicago and Sacramento Avenues, Wood District Police Sgt. Vincent Walsh said.
Reports on the number of injuries after the crash varied, but a Chicago Fire Department spokesman said 13 people were taken to hospitals. Of the injured, four were reported in critical condition, spokesman Joe Roccasalva said. Three were in serious condition, and six others in fair condition, he said. Paramedics told Walsh on the scene that a 9-year-old girl riding in the van was among those critically injured.
The CTA bus slammed into a stopped car waiting to turn right onto Chicago Avenue. The driver of that car ran away for an unknown reason, Walsh said.
The driver of the van, which was carrying the girl and two women who were also hospitalized, was arrested and was being questioned by police Sunday night, Walsh said. No charges had been lodged against him and police did not know the relationship between him and his passengers.
“The paramedics said the worst was in the [van],” Walsh said.
The crumpled van remained in the intersection Sunday night.
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CTA spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski said No. 66 Chicago buses and No. 52 Kedzie/California service were rerouted around the accident site Sunday night while police investigated.
Traffic signal repairman Mike Mulyk, with the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation, said the van hit a traffic signal controller at the intersection, knocking it to the ground. The lights at the scene were out for about two hours.
By 7:30 p.m. Mulyk had the control box standing upright again and the traffic signals were working.
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