CAVA involved in Broadway collision

Four people were injured when a car traveling south on Broadway collided with a CAVA ambulance shortly after 9 p.m. on Friday.

All were immobilized and taken to St. Luke’s, but released shortly thereafter.

According to witnesses, the ambulance was turning south on Broadway from 116th Street and had stopped near the median strip when a black compact car hit it. The ambulance was allowed to drive away after emergency personnel arrived, but the car remained on the west side of Broadway outside Ollie’s Noodle Shop & Grill. There was significant damage to the rear passenger’s side door, and FDNY officers and emergency medical technicians had to dismantle the car seats to extract the passengers and get them onto stretchers.

“The ambulance was stopped in the intersection of 116th and Broadway, yielding to traffic while attempting to make a U-turn to respond to another call, when it was struck by this vehicle,” Krishn Khanna, SEAS ’10 and director of CAVA, wrote in an e-mail. “The passengers of the other vehicle were taken to the hospital to get examined. The ambulance has a small dent in the bumper, but is in good working condition and still in service.”

Dan Held, communications director for Columbia Facilities, added in an e-mail, “The medics took all necessary safety precautions, including turning on lights, horns and sirens, and the ambulance was stopped when the accident occurred.”

Khanna said the rainy weather and heavy traffic at the intersection contributed to the accident.

“These are called accidents for a reason,” he said. “The crew did a good job of handling the difficult situation. We will continue following up with the incident and will do everything in our power to assure such incidents are prevented in the future.”

A detective with the New York Police Department’s public information office said he had no information on the accident.