Reversing car kills patient outside hospital

A hospital patient has died after she was hit by a reversing car while being lifted out of an ambulance, police have said.

The 63-year-old woman, who has not been named, was being carried out of the ambulance in a wheelchair at the Bristol Royal Infirmary when a car crashed into the vehicle at about 3.45pm yesterday.

The woman, who was from the Whitchurch area of the city, was critically injured and died six hours later.

Her husband, who had accompanied her to the busy accident and emergency department unit, was also thought to have suffered minor injured in the crash, along with two other people.

The parked ambulance was hit by a reversing Fiat Punto, which just moments earlier had backed into a camper van parked in an ambulance bay.

Avon and Somerset Police confirmed the Punto had been recovered and the driver interviewed. No arrests have been made.

A police spokeswoman said they had launched an investigation into the death.

"The woman suffered multiple fractures and internal injuries in the collision," she said. "We are treating this as a road traffic collision."

A spokeswoman for United Bristol Healthcare Trust, which runs the BRI, said it could not comment on the accident because it was being investigated by the police.