Colorado EMS Provider Charged in Fatal Crash

The driver of an ambulance that collided with a tractor-trailer on Interstate 76 near Sterling, Colo., last May, killing two people, has been charged, the Colorado State Patrol announced Thursday.

Chris Larusso, 22, of Westminster, Colo. was charged with two counts of careless driving causing death and two counts of careless driving causing serious bodily injuries.

The Colorado State Patrol said that two people in the ambulance Larusso was driving died in the May 9 crash.

Karen Woods, 43, of Elizabeth, was a nurse and the mother of a 5-year-old daughter. Vicky Thomas, 35, was a mother of three and an ultrasound technician at a North Platte, Neb., hospital. Both died when the Rural-Metro Ambulance collided with the rear of a semitrailer about 15 miles west of Sterling while driving from North Platte to Denver.

"We know they were both in the right lane, and the ambulance was trying to change to the left lane," said Trooper Eric Wynn on the day of the accident..

"Its right-front side collided with the left rear of the trailer and it pretty much destroyed all of that front portion of the ambulance, particularly on the right side," he said.

Kelsey Schlichenmayer, 43, of Burlington, was critically injured in the crash. She delivered a baby boy, several weeks premature, hours after the crash.

Larusso and Dan Beza, 31, of Centennial were also injured in the accident. They were treated and released from a Sterling Hospital. The driver of the semi, Plamen Zelyamov of Chicago was not injured.

Woods worked as a nurse for 10 years at the Medical Center of Aurora and worked part time as the head nurse for ambulances, transferring patients in critical care from one hospital to another.

Thomas was keeping her pregnant sister-in-law company during the long ambulance ride to Denver.

Previous Stories:

• May 10, 2006: Semi-Ambulance Crash Kills Two Near Sterling

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