A serious head-on crash involving two cars Monday evening left one person dead at the scene and injured three children and a 36-year-old mother according to Parma police.
The crash happened on Snow Road near State Road around 7 p.m. and killed Luke Kuryluk, 23, of Parma Heights, who was driving one of the vehicles.
The other driver, a 36-year-old Seven Hills woman, was seriously injured, along with three of the six children in her car, according to police. The children ranged in age from one to 11.
"There are children that are hurt," one 911 caller said. "There was a bad accident. We need people here. I can't tell if the mom is injured or if she's just got blood from the children on her."
Officers say a one-year-old girl stopped breathing but was resuscitated after a nurse at the scene performed CPR.
"We have a nurse here that's helping, but we need an ambulance," the 911 caller continues.
Registered nurse Andrea Delfs, who works in the cardiac unit at UH Parma Medical Center, said she was at the right place at the right time. She recalls driving to work when she saw the aftermath of an accident that occurred just minutes before her arrival. In those critical moments, her first reaction was to stop her car and help the victims at the crash scene.
"For me, if I see something and someone needs help, I just hit go. I can't even look away. I need to help them and that's what I did," said Delfs.
After a couple minutes of performing CPR on the girl, Delfs said the girl began to move her finger. It was then that another person at the scene said a man in another vehicle involved in the accident wasn't breathing.
"I went immediately to the other car and I could see outside of the car that he didn't look good to me. I got in the car, checked his pulse, he didn't have a pulse, so I did CPR inside the car because he was jammed in. There was no way we could get him out. I did the best I could to do CPR to him inside the car."
The 911 dispatcher can be heard on the call yelling to update officials that "CPR is being done on the baby."
The injured driver and three injured children were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center by Parma paramedics.
After an investigation, police determined Kuryluk veered into the lane the woman was driving in and hit her car head-on. Police are unsure at this time what caused Kuryluk to move into the oncoming lane.
Parma firefighters had to cut the door and windshield of Kuryluk's car to get him out.
The accident remains under investigation.
