An ambulance crash along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill in the early hours of Saturday morning left two first responders with injuries and a utility pole severely damaged.

A release from the Town of Chapel Hill on Saturday said police closed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at Longview Street for hours after the Orange County Emergency Services vehicle struck a pole and overturned around 12:30 a.m.

Chapel Hill’s release said the ambulance had a patient on-board and it was headed to UNC Hospitals when it crashed. The first responders suffered non-life-threatening injuries and the patient was successfully transported to the hospital for further evaluation.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, according to the Town of Chapel Hill. Police said Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was reopened shortly after 9 a.m.

The damaged utility pole knocked out power for several surrounding households, according to Duke Energy’s outage map. Power was restored to those at Longview Street by mid-morning on Saturday. The crash represented the second outage in Chapel Hill within the span of 24 hours — as a tree damaged power lines along Country Club Road on UNC’s campus Friday and caused an outage for around five hours.

Photo via the Chapel Hill Police Department.

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.

 

Related Stories
None