Four people were injured Saturday morning when a Chevrolet Tahoe — driven by a man possibly on drugs — ran onto a sidewalk along South Colorado Boulevard and crashed through the corner of a building.
Three of the injured people were inside the store and two of them suffered serious injuries. Of those one, a 60-year-old woman, remained “very” critically injured Saturday afternoon, according to Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson.
The driver of the SUV, who appeared to be a man in his 20s, suffered serious arm injuries and had to be extricated from his vehicle, Jackson said. The man has not been formally arrested, though police said they expect to take him into custody.
The SUV was traveling north in the southbound lanes of South Colorado Boulevard for about half a block before impact, Jackson said.
Accent Optics is on the northwest corner of Colorado and East Amherst Avenue.
Jackson said there is no indication the driver of the SUV tried to brake or slow down before hitting the building.
“At this point we are not sure why he was traveling on the wrong side of the street,” he said.
Abby, an employee at the Steele Street Bank and Trust across the street, who declined to give her last name, heard the crash and ran outside where she saw from 15 to 20 bystanders running towards the optics store.
She said she saw an elderly woman exit the wreckage looking dazed who said that her husband was still inside the shop. Abby said the woman was followed by a man “completely covered in blood.”
“There was a lot of debris,” Abby said. “I thought it was smoke at first, but then I realized it was insulation and construction debris all over the place.”
“It was kind of surreal,” she said. “Something that you see on television that happens to other people.”
The accident happened around 10:08 a.m. Saturday, said Division Chief Joseph Gonzales of the Denver Fire Department.
At least six fire trucks were on the scene Saturday morning and teams were shoring up a corner of the building.
Southbound Colorado Boulevard was reopened around 1 p.m. after being shut down at Amherst during the investigation. The SUV narrowly missed a lamp post and a fire hydrant before it it the corner of the building.
Police originally had said that five people were injured in the crash, later revising that count at a press conference Saturday afternoon. It is unknown which drug or drugs that police believe the driver had used.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jesseapaul
