An Adams County firefighter was seriously injured and three others were hurt when a suspected drunken driver drove around police barricades and into the scene of an earlier DUI crash on Interstate 76 on Thursday night.
The crash occurred at about 9:10 p.m. on westbound I-76 between Sable Boulevard and U.S. 85 while Commerce City police and South Adams County firefighters were investigating a suspected drunken-driving crash involving one vehicle, Colorado State Patrol Master Trooper Gary Cutler said at a news conference Friday.
A fire truck was blocking two lanes of traffic for the investigation and officers were directing traffic onto the right shoulder when a 24-year-old man driving a Toyota Tacoma drove around police barricades and to the left of the truck, hitting four first responders.
One firefighter sustained serious injuries and underwent surgery on Friday, said South Adams County Fire Chief Ken Koger. One Commerce City officer sustained moderate injuries, and a South Adams County firefighter and a Commerce City officer sustained minor injuries in the crash.
The 24-year-old was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and booked into the Adams County jail early Friday morning. Additional information about charges in the case was not available on Friday.
Colorado State Patrol troopers responded to 214 DUI crashes in Adams County alone last year, Cutler said at the news conference.
“We are getting to a point where we absolutely need the public’s help,” he said. “We need people to actually start taking responsibility on this. When we can’t get our own people out there to help others that are in need of assistance when they have crashes or something else that’s going on the road, and we have to worry about being hit and injured or possibly killed… this cannot continue the way it’s been going.”
Koger choked up when talking about receiving the call that one of his firefighters was seriously injured on Thursday night.
“This has got to stop,” he said. “These guys are trained, they park their vehicles to protect them and it’s still not enough. Being a firefighter today and walking into burning buildings is not the danger of the job anymore, it’s being on the highways. This has got to stop. I don’t know what we have to do, but it has to change.”
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