Two Crashes

Christy Bollinger story at 5p

I'm amber freeman.

Lexington police and e-m-s were busy all morning and most of the afternoon... dealing with two terrible crashes... less than four hours apart.

This first crash happened on leestown road this morning around seven.... and it was fatal.

The fayette county coroner says 50- year-old tammy botkin died.

According to lexington police, the other single- vehicle wreck happened just before eleven, on west new circle road..

Near the harrodsburg exit... that sent a woman to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Abc 36's christy bollinger has more details from those crashes... and why police think the holiday weekend is starting off like this.

That's tonight's top story at five.

Lexington police say the start of the fourth of july is not usually this active.

Lt.

Chris van brackel thinks this, in part, has something to do with the coronavirus pandemic.

"memorial day weekend that's always the big traffic safety push you'll hear all the ads, blue lights across the bluegrass.

That's the official summer start.

Now with the coronavirus and everything else that seems to be pushed back a little bit."

Pushed back to the next holiday..

The fourth of july..

The first big holiday since statewide restrictions have been lifted.

"in my experience this morning there's a lot more traffic out then i would expect."

Traffic got even worse..

With leestown road shut down for several hours.

Police say an s-u-v t-boned a car coming out of the kroger... and the car caught fire.

The driver of the s- u-v tried to run..

Police say he was arrested and taken to a hospital.

That crash took the life of tammy botkin... less than four hours later..

West new circle road near harrodsburg was shut down..

When an s-u-v flipped several times in the median... a woman was ejected and taken to the hospital with life threatening injuries.

Police say the male driver was fine.

He was wearing a seat belt... "we're reminding everybody slow down, wear your seat belts.

You hear it all the time but seatbelts do save lives."

It was a tragic start to the holiday weekend..

And that takes a toll on first responders.

"leestown road was a very violent collision that is going to have a big impact on the police and firefighters that were there."

And for the crash reconstruction units.

"those folks are going from one bad crash to the other without any break or anything at this point so that weighs on you.

Mentally and physically it wears you down."

Police urge everyone traveling to be safe..

Use caution..

Wear seatbelts..

And slow down.

In lexington, christy bollinger, abc 36 news.

An update now on a story we brought