Three people were taken to hospitals in critical condition after a helicopter crashed onto a California freeway Monday night, officials said. The crash happened on eastbound U.S. Highway 50 near 59th Street in Sacramento, said Officer Michael Harper, a California Highway Patrol spokesman, in a news conference. The injured were a pilot, nurse and paramedic, Sacramento Fire Capt. Justin Sylvia told reporters. They were two females and a male, he said. No vehicles were involved in the wreck, which occurred at around 7:08 p.m, Sylvia said. Aerial video fromNBC affiliate KCRA of Sacramentoshowed the red helicopter on its side with a smashed cockpit and debris over the road surface. It had a white circle with a red medical cross on the fuselage. Among the crowd on an overpass staring at the scene was local resident Brett Berkstresser. He told KCRA that he was in his backyard Monday evening when he heard sirens coming from what seemed to be every direction. "The sirens was crazy, just the amount of the emergency services," he told the station. When firefighters arrived, one of the victims was trapped underneath the aircraft, Sylvia said. There was only one fire department engine that had been able to reach the crash at that point, Sylvia said, and the fire captain at the scene asked civilian bystanders to help lift part of the helicopter to free the victim. The freeway is expected to be closed for an extended period of time, said Harper, the highway patrol spokesman. Sylvia said that while the three people who were injured were transported in critical condition, it was fortunate that the fuel aboard the helicopter did not catch fire. "It being jet fuel that's loaded onto these aircrafts, it would have been a very hot and intense fire," he said.
