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Videos: Street Race Led To Fiery Crash With Metro Bus, Witnesses Say
Police are investigating claims that an explosive crash with a Metro bus may have been the result of at least two vehicles racing each other in South L.A. last night.
Witnesses told KTLA that just before 7 p.m. on Monday, a white Dodge Challenger and black Mercedes were racing each other along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. When they reached the intersection of Western Avenue, the Mercedes T-boned the bus, while the Challenger collided with other vehicles and flipped over. Smoke began to fill the Mercedes and flames erupted as witnesses ran to pull the driver and passenger from the vehicle.
"I open the back door, I see the guy getting burned up on his feet... so a couple of us went inside the car and ripped the seatbelt and got him out," Miguel Baltazar told KTLA.
Video shows Good Samaritans trying to rescue person in fiery Metro bus crash in South LA https://t.co/X1UXKBB85Zhttps://t.co/mwanjzKiM7
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) March 29, 2016
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Flames quickly spread to the bus, which had no passengers at the time except for the driver, and police soon arrived to assist with pulling people from the vehicles.
"When I came over the police were right there pulling people out. The bus is on fire, then it started exploding so we had to get back," witness David Caudillo also told KTLA.
Responding firefighters soon put out the fire.
Seven people were injured as a result of the collision, two of them critically, according to the L.A. Times. Six were transported to the hospital, while one opted not to go.
One witness told KTLA that there was a third vehicle involved, but that report has not yet been confirmed.
In a video shared with KTLA, one witness tells an LAPD officer, "These guys were racing. They almost crashed into me way back there."
The fiery wreckage of a crash in South L.A. was captured on cellphone video after two cars slammed into a Metro bus, and witnesses say street racing was to blame. Two people were critically injured and four more were hospitalized following the crash, which occurred Monday afternoon. Authorities have not determined the cause of the crash, but said the drivers would face reckless driving charges if street racing was involved. Read KTLA's story here: http://on.ktla.com/Dltze
Posted by KTLA 5 News on Tuesday, March 29, 2016
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