‘Driver is not moving’: Audio captures KCFD response to Corvette crash that killed 2
Update: Police identified the two victims as 33-year-old Delvon Landrum and 41-year-old Nickie Lewis.
Radio traffic of firefighters responding to a crash late Sunday highlights the urgency they faced when rushing to the fiery wreck involving a Corvette that slammed into a midtown Kansas City building.
Two people died when the Corvette, which was traveling at high speeds, crashed into a building at the southeast corner of East 31st Street and Troost Avenue shortly after 11 p.m. Sunday.
Initially, the call came out as a traffic accident but was upgraded shortly thereafter, according to audio captured by Broadcastify.com.
“I don’t know if you can see in the notes,” a dispatcher told a fire commander responding to the scene. “(Police) just reported that the car into the building is fully involved (in flames) and the driver is not moving.”
Dispatchers then sent additional firetrucks to the crash telling firefighters, “This is a car accident into a building that’s now a building fire.”
The building is home to Thelma’s Kitchen, which moved out of the location about a month ago to begin extensive renovations. The building was empty at the time of the crash.
One of the first arriving crews advised dispatchers that the car was on fire outside the building and that a full fire response was not necessary, according to the radio traffic.
Shortly thereafter, dispatchers told a fire commander that police were reporting that the building was fully involved in fire.
“At this time, we have a fully involved auto,” fire command reported back to dispatchers. “The building is only partially involved.”
Fire command also asked dispatchers to have any responding fire crews not on the scene to slow to non-emergency. Shortly there after, one of the fire crews reported that they had a victim who was confirmed dead on the sidewalk.
The fatalities mark the 34th and 35th people killed in crashes this year in Kansas City, according to the police department.
Officers working a single-vehicle crash near Linwood Boulevard and Holmes Street first spotted the Corvette in their rear view mirror. The Corvette was headed east “at a very high rate of speed,” according to the crash report.
Officers watched as the gray Corvette veered into the lanes of oncoming traffic to pass other vehicles that were stopped at the intersection, according the report. The driver of the Corvette then turned left toward East 31st Street.
The report said that officers attending to the other crash didn’t try to stop or chase the Corvette, but followed the driver. When they reached 31st Street, they saw flames.
Crash investigators later determined that as the driver of the Corvette sped down 31st Street, they at one point drove to the right of a construction zone and onto a sidewalk, police said. In the process, the car sheared off a large piece of a metal traffic signal pole on the southeast side of the intersection.
Once at the crash, officers tried and failed to put out the flames, according to the crash report. Firefighters arrived soon after and extinguished the blaze.. Both the driver and passenger were found inside the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene.
Crash investigators later determined that as the driver of the Corvette sped down 31st Street, they at one point drove to the right of a construction zone and onto a sidewalk, police said. In the process, the car sheared off a large piece of a metal traffic signal pole on the southeast side of the intersection.
It took about five hours for police to re-open the intersection early Monday.
This story was originally published May 2, 2022 at 4:35 PM.
