Pennsylvania State Police are investigating after a car full of teenagers crashed in South Philly early Friday morning, killing a 16-year-old girl and sending five others to the hospital.
Around 1:30 a.m., Philadelphia police requested state police assistance to close the offramp from I-95 southbound to Columbus Boulevard after a “serious” crash, state police said. When troopers arrived, they determined the vehicle crash began on the interstate.
The car, a Nissan Maxima, “exited the off-ramp at a high rate of speed, struck the concrete median prior to the traffic light, and became airborne until coming to final rest in the center of the intersection,” said state police Trooper Paul Holdefer.
Six teens — four of them sitting in the back — were inside the Nissan, Holdefer said.
A 16-year-old girl who was sitting “in the center rear of the vehicle” was pronounced dead at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Holdefer said. Another girl and the 17-year-old boy who was driving the car also were taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
A 17-year-old girl who’d been sitting in the back was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in critical condition, Holdefer said.
Two 17-year-old boys, one who had been sitting in the front passenger seat, and the other in the rear, were taken to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and were in stable condition.
Police did not identify anyone involved in the crash, which remains under investigation.