4 killed when their car collides head-on with Chicago bus

CHICAGO (AP) - Four people were killed when the car they were in collided head-on early Sunday with a Chicago city bus, police said.

The car, which was speeding, hit a parked vehicle before it veered out of control into the oncoming Chicago Transit Authority bus at around 6 a.m. on the city's west side, said Officer Michelle Tannehill, a police spokeswoman.

People in the East Garfield Park neighborhood rushed to the scene and tried to pull victims out of the car, but they couldn't because smoke and flames around the car were too intense, witness Malinda Demery told reporters.

"We had to get them out. They were pinned inside there," Commander Curtis Hudson, with the Chicago Fire Department, said later.

Television footage showed the twisted wreckage of the car in the middle of the street in front of the No. 20 CTA bus, which appeared largely intact.

The bus driver and four passengers were taken to hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, another police spokesman, Officer Michael Carroll, said later Sunday. There were no other car passengers, he said.

Police did not immediately release the identities of those who died. The Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times cited police as saying they were all in their 20s.

The police department's major accident unit and the CTA were investigating the crash.