Project Summary:
This story is part of KXAN’s “Preventing Disaster” investigation, which initially published on May 15, 2024. The project follows a fatal car crash into an Austin hospital’s emergency room earlier that year. Our team took a broader look at safety concerns with that crash and hundreds of others across the nation – including whether medical sites had security barriers – known as bollards – at their entrances. Experts say those could stop crashes from happening.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Texas state senator wants to make hospitals safer following a deadly crash inside the emergency room lobby at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center in February and is now considering filing a bill after a KXAN investigation revealed these types of accidents are not uncommon .
“We’ll sit down with the hospitals and kind of get their take on exactly how we go about tackling and resolving this particular problem,” said State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. “I’m committed to it.”
