One person is dead and three people required hospital treatment including a man accused of DUI following a fiery crash in Pompano Beach, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.
Christopher Alexander Hoepker, 35, is facing charges that include DUI causing death, DUI causing serious injury, driving with an expired license, having a third DUI arrest, and other traffic infractions, records show.
The collision between a pickup truck and a minivan happened just after 12 a.m. Wednesday morning in the 500 block of W. Sample Road, investigators said.
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The driver of one of the vehicles was trapped inside the wreckage and pronounced dead at the scene of the crash.
Pompano Beach Fire Rescue extinguished the flames and took three people to the hospital.
NBC 6 spoke to one of the victims from her hospital bed. Shaina Cadet, 24, is in a lot of pain and can't walk after breaking both her femur bones.
“All I remember was the car was smoking up and I was calling out to my friends and nobody was answering," Cadet said. "And then someone pulled me out of the car but I don’t remember much after that."
Cadet was with her two friends — identified as 21-year-old Diamond Findlay and 27-year-old Bruna Oliveira — heading to another friend's house.
Cadet and Findlay are now in the hospital recovering, but Oliveira died after the car caught fire.
“I just wish people would stop drinking and driving,” Cadet said.
Broward Sheriff’s traffic homicide detectives and its DUI Task Force are investigating the collision.
