The 21-year-old woman who died early Tuesday after driving the wrong way on Interstate 225 and hitting an RTD skyRide bus was a daycare provider who worked in homes around Denver.
“She was a pretty nice person and had lots of friends,” said Christal Gordon’s father, Allen Gordon. “She was very honest. She was very upright.”
People trusted her in their homes, he said.
Prior to working daycare, Christal worked at Safeway.
Christal is one of four children including a sister and two brothers. She was also attending college, her father said.
Aurora police continue to investigate the head-on collision, which occurred about 1:48 a.m.
Sgt. Kevin Rollins of the Aurora Police Department said that, moments before the collision, an employee with the Colorado Department of Transportation spotted Gordon standing outside her Ford Taurus in the median of I-225, south of East Yale Avenue.
The employee, who was in a clearly identifiable CDOT vehicle, turned on his flashing lights and was driving up to assist Gordon when she jumped into her car and proceeded northward in the southbound lanes of I-225, said Rollins.
Rollins said Gordon, who lived in Aurora, quickly accelerated and had driven about 500 feet when she crashed into the southbound RTD bus.
The sergeant said the CDOT employee estimated Gordon was going about 40 mph when she hit the bus.
Both the CDOT employee and the RTD driver said the woman drove onto the road with her lights off. It is not known why she was stopped in the median.
“It is a very tragic accident,” said RTD spokesman Scott Reed.
The skyRide driver and three passengers who were just picked up at Denver International Airport were taken to a hospital with minor injuries.
“That was one of the few positives,” said Reed, referring to the minor injuries.
Reed said the bus was headed from DIA 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 seated on the rearmost seat on the bus when Gordon slammed into it.
“I was listening to my iPod when I thought I saw a car coming right at us,” said Stinson. “I was thrown 15 feet and ended upside down facing up.”
“I was dumbfounded. I was thinking, ‘What is this?'”
He said that in addition to him, the bus passengers included a TSA employee and a DIA skycap.
“My initial reaction was total shock,” said Stinson. “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 he and his fellow bus riders could see Gordon pinned in the wreckage.
“I feel sorry for the victim and her family,” he said.
Rollins said the force of the impact drove the Taurus backward about 250 feet into the median, where both vehicles came to rest. 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
