News

Actions

First responders talk about deadly Vegas crash

Posted at 12:45 PM, Feb 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-02-16 08:42:03-05

The 911 calls that were made the night that the woman drove onto a sidewalk on the Las Vegas Strip have been released, giving a clearer picture of what happened that night.

Jessica Valenzuela of Buckeye, Arizona died in the Dec. 20 crash and dozens more were injured.

Dispatch specialist Sonja Clickner told ABC15's sister station, 13 Action News that she thought it was a normal traffic accident at first. But then the calls started pouring in and she quickly realized that something much different was happening.

RELATED: Family of Vegas crash victim Jessica Valenzuela celebrates her 33rd birthday

34 emergency units raced to the Las Vegas Strip and immediately began treating the broken and the injured.

A witness told the dispatcher, "I'm telling you a car hit them straight. It was a big crowd of people and people just flipped everywhere. At least 20 people got hit."

From the moment the call came in, it took Station 32 less than one minute to respond. But as the initial six firefighters responded, another disturbing call came in.

"I've got 3 people down that I can see on camera. I'm also getting calls of shots fired."

Despite the fear of an active shooter, the firefighters worked on triaging patients.

"If it's a shooting, where is the shooter?" said Battalion Chief Eric Poleski. "What are they doing? So we have a situation that involves security and Metro before we can make the scene safe so other crews can come in."

Eventually police determined no one had a gun at the scene so more rescuers went in to help.

"Crews from 11 and 18, that was the calvary. They bailed us out," said firefighter Craig Vaccaro. "When we needed to really start treating patients, those were the guys who helped us out."

Lakeisha Holloway was arrested in the crash and faces murder and attempted murder charges.