The 21-year-old woman who died early Tuesday after driving the wrong way on Interstate 225 and colliding with an RTD skyRide bus was a day-care provider who worked in homes around Denver.
“She was a pretty nice person and had lots of friends,” said Christal Gordon’s father, Allen. “She was very honest. She was very upright.”
Christal Gordon, an Aurora resident, also was attending college, her father said.
Aurora police are still investigating the head-on collision, which occurred at 1:48 a.m.
Police Sgt. Kevin Rollins said that moments before the collision, a Colorado Department of Transportation employee spotted Gordon standing outside her Ford Taurus in the median of I-225, just south of East Yale Avenue. The employee, who was in a marked CDOT vehicle, turned on his flashing lights and was driving up to assist her when Gordon jumped back into her car and drove north in the southbound lanes of I-225.
Rollins said Gordon accelerated quickly and had driven about 500 feet when she crashed into the bus.
The sergeant said the CDOT employee estimated Gordon was going about 40 mph when she hit the bus. He said the bus was going approximately the 55 mph speed limit.
Both the CDOT employee and the RTD driver said the woman drove onto the road with her lights off.
“It is a very tragic accident,” said RTD spokesman Scott Reed.
The skyRide driver and three passengers who boarded at Denver International Airport were taken to a hospital with minor injuries.
Reed said the bus was headed to the Nine Mile Station park-n-Ride, at I-225 and South Parker Road. It was the last bus of the night on the route.
Eric Stinson, who works at Denver International Airport, was sitting in the last row of the bus when the collision occurred.
“I was listening to my iPod when I thought I saw a car coming right at us,” Stinson said. “I was thrown 15 feet and ended up upside down.”
He said the other bus passengers included a Transportation Security Administration employee and a DIA skycap.
“My initial reaction was total shock,” Stinson said. “You are trying to figure out why she came across the median into the southbound lanes.”
Stinson said that Gordon’s car was “obliterated” and that he and his fellow bus riders could see the woman pinned in the wreckage.
Rollins said the force of the impact drove the Taurus backward about 250 feet into the median. Gordon was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators say toxicology tests will be performed to determine whether drugs or alcohol were contributing factors in the crash.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
