Five people sent to hospital in four separate Wichita area wrecks, troopers say

Five people were hospitalized in four separate wrecks Friday around the Wichita area, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol.

For comparison, the KHP reported one wreck in Sedgwick County last Friday and none the Friday before that.

Among the five hospitalized, three were listed as stable at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis on Saturday, one appears to have been released from the hospital and no condition was available for the fifth, who was taken to Wesley Medical Center.

Here is a look at what KHP crash reports say about the wrecks:

The first happened around 5:30 a.m. when a 25-year-old Goddard man was driving a 2002 Ford Ranger northbound on I-235 “South of North Meridian.” He left the road to the right for “unknown reasons and drove into the ditch … (the truck) rolled and the driver was ejected,” a trooper wrote. The driver was taken to St. Francis with suspected serious injuries. He was listed in stable condition late Saturday morning.

Around 7:48 a.m. around Friday, a 19-year-old Haysville woman was parked on the right shoulder of the ramp from MacArthur to I-235 north when a teenage boy driving an SUV “sideswiped the left side” of the 2022 Buick Enclave she drove. The boy had no injuries; the woman was taken to St. Francis with minor injuries. She was not listed as being there Saturday, likely since she was already released.

Then around 10:05 a.m. on Friday, two people were seriously injured in a two-vehicle wreck just outside Bel Aire. An 81-year-old Whitewater man was north on Greenwich when he “failed to yield at the stop sign” and crossed westbound K-254. The man, who was driving a 2012 Chevrolet Silverado, collided with a 68-year-old Wichita man driving west on K-254. The 68-year-old was listed as stable Saturday at St. Francis. The Whitewater man was taken to Wesley Medical Center with suspected serious injuries. A spokesperson for the hospital did not reply Saturday to an update on his condition.

The last wreck happened around 9:40 p.m.on northbound I-135 at Pawnee. A 45-year-old Wichita woman was driving in the “center lane … at a high rate of speed,” a trooper said. She swerved “at the last second” to avoid a Wichita woman driving a 2016 Mercedes-Benz but ended up hitting the rear corner of the driver’s side. She then hit a retaining wall before traveling across all four lanes and hitting the concrete wall on the other side of the highway. She was taken to St. Francis with suspected serious injuries. She was listed as stable late Saturday morning. The two passengers in her vehicle and driver of the other vehicle had no injuries.