One dead, two people injured after car crashes into Des Plaines condo

A 73-year-old woman died from an apparent heart attack after the car in which she was traveling struck a condo building Monday afternoon near downtown Des Plaines, authorities said.

It all started, police say, when the car's 71-year-old driver swerved off the roadway near River Road and River Street because she was getting a leg cramp.

When police got to the scene shortly before 4 p.m., they noticed the unidentified 73-year-old woman, who was in the front passenger seat, was unresponsive and not breathing. Officers pulled the woman from the vehicle and, with the assistance of a good Samaritan, began to administer CPR, according to a news release.

Paramedics took the woman to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where she was pronounced dead from an apparent heart attack, authorities said.

The driver and a woman riding in the back seat were taken to area hospitals for treatment of nonlife-threatening injuries, police said.

Their car, a red sedan, was headed north on River when it jumped the curb and crashed into a 5-story condo building. The vehicle struck below a window to a vacant residential unit, said Battalion Chief Mike Tripicchio of the Des Plaines Fire Department.

No one was inside or on the sidewalk at the time of the crash, Tripicchio said.

The city building department was called to the scene to evaluate the building's structure, but damage didn't appear to be significant, he said.

Police said they would continue to investigate the 73-year-old woman's death with the assistance of the Cook County medical examiner's office.