A motorist was killed when he slammed his vehicle into an empty school bus, causing a chain reaction collision late Tuesday in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.
About 10:55 p.m. in the 2700 block of West Augusta Boulevard, a man driving a gray car at a high rate of speed slammed into a parked empty school bus, Chicago police said.
The collision caused the bus to then crash into four unoccupied parked cars along the block, police said.
The driver was dead at the scene, according to police. The Major Accident Investigation Unit is investigating.
Ginevra Francesconi, an Uptown resident, was out to dinner when she saw a car “flying down California” followed by a sound that made her and many others in the restaurant stand up.
“I saw a car driving really, really fast,” she said. “Then we heard this loud screeching and a boom. … I’ve never heard a bomb but it sounded like one.”
People quickly ran out of the restaurant and down the street to help, and found a school bus had been pushed onto the car behind it, as well as other smashed parked cars. One of those cars, as well as the car that struck the bus, were on fire, Francesconi said.
Nearby residents ran out of their homes with fire extinguishers and put out the small blazes before firefighters arrived, she said. A woman at the scene who said she was a doctor checked on the man before realizing he was dead, and she searched for other passengers after seeing what looked like a child’s car seat in the back.
“I was moved by how people ran toward it and were helping to put out fires that could’ve caused way more damage,” Francesconi said. “It’s such a Chicago thing. All power to the people who ran out of their houses in pajamas with fire extinguishers who prevented it from being worse.”
She left the scene about 10 minutes later, when first responders eventually arrived.
Ultimately, Francesconi said she was “heartbroken for whatever was happening” for the driver.
“I just hope people can be nonjudgemental for that person; anyone driving like that is obviously not OK,” Francesconi said. “I just feel terrible for them.”