MONROE — Authorities say an emergency worker from South Carolina is dead after the ambulance they were riding in collided with a tractor-trailer near a North Carolina hospital.

Police in Monroe said the wreck occurred around 11 a.m. Tuesday near Carolinas Medical Center Union. At least one other person was injured in the collision, which flipped the ambulance onto its side and caused the 18-wheeler to veer off the road in front of a restaurant.

A spokesman for Sandhills Ambulance Service of Cheraw, S.C., said the patient was not on board at the time of the crash. The company's executive director told WPDE in South Carolina that the two EMTs were returning to South Carolina after dropping off a patient.

The wreck closed westbound U.S. 74 as workers cleared the scene.