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File photo.

A driver was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after an early-morning crash near the VA Hospital that shut down a stretch of Bellflower Boulevard today, police said.

The wreck happened around 5:45 a.m. when a 26-year-old man in a Honda Fit pulled away from the curb on southbound Bellflower and started to make an illegal U-turn just north of Seventh Street, according to police.

While turning, the Fit collided with a Lexus that was headed southbound on Bellflower, Long Beach Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer De Prez said. A bystander tended to the Fit’s driver until paramedics arrived and took him to a local hospital, De Prez said.

The 25-year-old woman driving the Lexus wasn’t hurt, police said. Her car also hit a parked truck after the crash with the Fit, according to De Prez.

Police are still investigating, but the street has reopened, De Prez said.

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.