Injured firefighter Rohn Renfro is taken to an ambulance after Engine 4 and a car collided on Wilbarger Street.
A 70-year-old man was critically injured and a firefighter was also hurt Thursday afternoon when the man's car and a firetruck collided while the truck was on its way to a medical call.
The car caught fire, and firefighters -- including the injured one -- rushed to put it out, said Lt. Kent Worley, a Fire Department spokesman.
At 1:39 p.m., Engine 4, occupied by four firefighters, was traveling east on Wilbarger Street with its lights and sirens on, headed to a call on Burke Road, Worley said.
The driver of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo northbound on Rutan Street entered the intersection in front of the approaching engine, Worley said.
The car hit the firetruck's passenger side where firefighter Rohn Renfro was seated in an exposed rear jump seat.
Antoinette Williams, a certified nursing assistant, had pulled to the side of the road after seeing the approaching firetruck and witnessed the collision.
"The firefighters tried to stop and avoid the accident, but it was too late," Williams said.
When the fire broke out in the crushed Monte Carlo's front end, firefighters, including a limping Renfro, jumped out and quickly extinguished it.
"He was injured, and he still jumped off and put the fire out," Williams said. "That amazed me."
The Monte Carlo's driver was slumped into the passenger seat, she said. As firefighters administered aid to the man, Williams said, she tried to get the hurt firefighter to sit down.
Renfro, 42, was treated at Harris Methodist Fort Worth hospital and released.
The driver of the car, Frank McClain, was in critical condition Thursday evening at John Peter Smith Hospital.
Although there is no stop sign at the intersection, motorists on Rutan are expected to stop because the street dead-ends into Wilbarger, Worley said.
Thursday afternoon, bystanders watched as officers from the Fort Worth police Traffic Investigation Unit diagrammed the accident scene. A fire hose, thrown from the truck, was draped over the car, its connector smashed into the front windshield.
Eugene Moore, 46, said he was visiting a friend when he heard the firetruck's sirens and glanced out the window just as the collision occurred.
"I saw a big puff of smoke," Moore said. "I heard the impact. By the time I came out, the car was on fire."
"I've never seen anything like this in my life."
