LITTLETON — Missionaries on their way to a church in the foothills were killed Sunday morning when the driver of another vehicle apparently suffered a medical emergency and collided with the minivan they were riding in.
Two of the six people in the minivan were killed when it rolled several times off C-470 between Sante Fe Drive and Lucent Boulevard about 10:15 a.m., after it was hit by a Jeep Grand Cherokee, according to Littleton police.
The names of those in both cars were not released Sunday afternoon.
All of the surviving passengers in both vehicles were taken to area hospitals.
An infant, believed to be about 6 months old, was airlifted from Littleton Adventist Hospital to The Children’s Hospital in Aurora. Others in the van were also in critical condition Sunday afternoon, said Littleton Police Sgt. Mike Eyman.
The wreck closed C-470 for about six hours as emergency workers tried to remove the bodies from the van and preserve evidence before moving the vehicle, which came to a rest on its roof in the median. The van was under a yellow tarp as crews worked through the day Sunday. The road was to reopen at 4 p.m., Eyman said.
“We wanted to make sure we had 90 percent of it looked at before we started moving anything,” Eyman said.
The driver of the Jeep and his wife had non-life-threatening injuries. The wife told police her husband had a medical emergency, possibly a heart attack, that led to the crash.
Both vehicles were westbound on C-470 when the crash occurred, Eyman said.
“He came sideways and broadsided him, and the van flipped” about two times, Eyman said.
The Jeep left C-470 and came to a stop on a nearby service road with only minor injuries to its left front fender.
The crash was witnessed by a number of other motorists, including two off-duty paramedics who stopped to help, Eyman said.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
