![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/LaurenStGermain.png\"\/)
<\/p>\nWINTER HAVEN, fla. \u2014 A man was listed in critical condition on Dec. 13, after he crashed into a Winter Haven fire truck returning from a call, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office (PCSO) deputies and Polk County Fire Rescue (PCFR) were dispatched at 10:22 p.m. to Dundee Road at Overlook Drive Southeast in Winter Haven in response to the crash.<\/p>\n
According to Winter Haven Public Safety officials, a Winter Haven Fire Department fire truck was returning to its station after responding to a call.<\/p>\n
The engine, which had a green traffic light, was attempting to make a left turn from Overlook Drive onto Dundee Road when it was struck in the intersection by a Mercedes-Benz SUV.<\/p>\n
The crash caused significant damage to both the fire engine and the SUV, Winter Haven officials said.<\/p>\n
The fire engine was staffed with three firefighters when the crash occurred. The firefighters were not injured.<\/p>\n
Immediately following the crash, the firefighters began providing emergency medical care to the driver of the SUV, who was trapped inside the vehicle and suffered critical injuries.<\/p>\n
Firefighters had to extract the driver from the vehicle. He was then taken by air to a local trauma center.<\/p>\n
A preliminary investigation shows that high speed by the Mercedes-Benz driver appeared to be a factor in the crash. The driver may also have been impaired, Sheriff\u2019s Office officials said.<\/p>\n
Charges are anticipated, but the investigation remains ongoing, PCSO officials noted. <\/p>\n
Further updates will be provided as they become available.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“It made all the hard days worth it”<\/p>\n
In 2024, Tampa Bay 28 Anchor Lauren St. Germain brought viewers the story of a young mom here in Florida who was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer. Now, Lauren is following through and giving an update on her experimental cell vaccine therapy.<\/p>\n
Woman with stage four breast cancer now cancer-free after cell vaccine therapy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINTER HAVEN, fla. \u2014 A man was listed in critical condition on Dec. 13, after he crashed into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[205,1776,4543,1779,1911,46201,135,3670,137,136,208,21956],"class_list":["post-83808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-abc-action-news","tag-crash","tag-fire-truck","tag-firefighters","tag-polk-county","tag-polk-sheriffs-office","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-wfts","tag-winter-haven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}