There was a serious accident near a Des Moines-area shopping mall last night. It happened at about nine p.m. Monday. A West Des Moines fire truck was driving north on the street that runs in front of Valley West Mall, responding to a fire alarm in the Younker’s Store in the mall. The fire truck collided with a car in a major intersection near the mall. A teenager inside that crashed car had to be cut out of the vehicle by rescue crews.
Sixteen-year-old Erika Schwager was taken to a hospital where she is in critical condition according to a hospital spokesperson. The fire truck also hit a second car and that car smashed into another. No one in the fire truck or the two other crashed cars was injured.