Ambulance collision sends 4 to hospital

Four people were taken to the hospital Friday after a Jefferson County ambulance struck a pickup at the intersection of U.S. Highway 24 and Kansas Highway 237.

The Ford pickup was headed east on U.S. 24 and was turning left onto K-237 when it was struck by the ambulance. After those vehicles collided, the pickup ran into the passenger side of a nonmoving Cloud Heating and Cooling van whose driver, Darrin McAfee, 27, Lawrence, was uninjured.

The driver of the pickup, Dale A. Vawter, 48, Carbondale, was taken to Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka. McAfee said Vawter was bloody but conscious and talking when medical technicians pulled him from the vehicle.

The ambulance driver, Don L. Haynes, 44, Oskaloosa, was taken to Stormont-Vail as well.

Emergency medical technician Steve C. Scott, 53, Rossville, was attending to patient Doris Clark, 71, Winchester, in the back of the ambulance when the accident occurred. Scott was taken to Stormont-Vail, and Clark was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Topeka. Officials at the scene could not confirm what Clark was being treated for prior to the accident.

A medical technician at the scene described all of the injuries as nonlife-threatening.