A van driver has been killed and two paramedics injured following a crash between a van and an ambulance on the main N20 Cork-Mallow road in the early hours of Monday morning.
The crash happened at Rathduff near the turnoff for Bottlehill, some 19kms from Cork city at around 1.55am, when the two vehicles collided.
The driver of the van, a 36 year-old-man from Doneraile was pronounced dead at the scene and his body was removed to Cork University Hospital for a post-mortem examination on Monday morning.
The driver of the ambulance, a woman in her early 40s; her colleague, a man in his mid 50s and a male patient in his late 40s from Mallow received non life-threatening injuries in the crash.
It is understood that the ambulance was travelling towards Cork city and the van was travelling towards Mallow, when the collision happened just north of Rathduff village.
Gardaí have closed the road and put diversions in place to allow a forensic crash investigator examine the scene. Both vehicles are due to be examined by a Garda mechanical examiner.
Gardaí in Mallow are investigating the collision and have appealed to anyone who may have witnessed the collision or travelled the road about 1.40am to contact them on 022-31450.
Monday’s fatality brings to 13 the number of people who have been killed in road traffic collisions on Cork roads since the start of the year.
