- Credibility:
SOUTH LOOP — A 72-year-old woman died Monday after a delivery truck driver hit and pinned her under the truck in a South Loop intersection, officials said.
About 2:22 p.m., the 31-year-old man driving the truck was turning north onto Wabash near the 1100 block of South Wabash Avenue when he hit a woman crossing the street, trapping her underneath the truck, police said.
The woman was taken to Northwestern Hospital in critical condition, police said.
Marsha Frankel, 72, of the 1200 block of South Michigan Avenue, was pronounced dead at 2:35 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Detectives are investigating.
Kyle Lucas, an avid cyclist and Better Streets Chicago cofounder, was biking to a nearby Trader Joes when he came across an ambulance near where the crash happened, he said. Lucas said he saw what appeared to be a mangled wheelchair in the intersection.
“It was really beat up and broken,” Lucas said.
Police and fire department officials could not immediately confirm what that object was.
The area where the crash occurred is a “very scary intersection” overrun with delivery trucks during the day, Lucas said.
“Anytime I have to go through those intersections … anywhere along Wabash … it raises my blood pressure a little bit. It’s a pretty scary area,” Lucas said.
Christina Whitehouse, founder of Bike Lane Uprising, said the area near the crash and that intersection have caused problems for bicyclists and pedestrians, in part because drivers routinely block bike lanes.
Whitehouse also said some advocates have contacted Ald. Sophia King (4th) with concerns about the “dangerous intersection.”
“Especially once it gets to be delivery hours … for a good solid couple of blocks, it’s just completely filled with vehicles and pickups in the bike lanes on both sides,” Whitehouse said.
King could not immediately be reached for comment.
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