Des Moines, Iowa: Woman, 76, Dies After Crash and Fire in Hospital Parking Lot

A 76-year-old woman died on Monday after her vehicle crashed into trees and a parked truck in the parking lot of UnityPoint Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines and caught fire, police said.

Des Moines police officers and fire department rescue personnel responded at around 10:30 a.m. to the hospital parking lot at 700 E. University Ave., according to a release from Des Moines police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Parizek.

The path of the crash

The woman was driving a 2018 Ford Escape eastbound on E. University Avenue before entering into the westbound lanes, the release states. The vehicle then entered the hospital parking lot and crashed into trees and an unoccupied parked truck before stopping and catching fire.

The driver was removed from the vehicle by bystanders and transported to the hospital, where she later died. Police have not released her name in the reports published so far.

The crash did not end in the parking lot. The unoccupied truck was forced into the roadway on Pennsylvania Avenue and collided with a vehicle in traffic. That driver was also treated at the hospital and suffered non-life threatening injuries, the release states.

A medical episode under investigation

Des Moines police are continuing to investigate the incident. A "critical medical episode" is being investigated as a contributing factor to the crash, the release states.

That question sits at the center of the case. The sequence police describe, a car crossing into oncoming lanes, leaving the road and crossing a parking lot before striking trees and a parked truck, is the kind of path investigators see when a driver loses control for a medical reason, but police have not announced a finding. What they have said is that the episode is being investigated as a contributing factor, not settled as the cause.

What is known and what is not

The crash happened in the middle of a Monday morning at one of the hospitals Des Moines drivers pass every day on the East University Avenue corridor. The woman was taken from her vehicle by people who happened to be nearby, and she died steps from the emergency care she was carried into.

Police have not said how fast the vehicle was traveling, whether anyone else was inside it, or when the driver's name will be released. The investigation is ongoing, and the findings on the medical episode question will decide how this crash is recorded: as a traffic death, as a medical death that happened behind the wheel, or as both.

For the driver on Pennsylvania Avenue, the morning ended with treatment for injuries police called non-life threatening after a parked truck was pushed into traffic in front of that vehicle. No other injuries were described in the release beyond that driver and the woman who died.