DES MOINES, Iowa — The Des Moines Police Department announced on Friday that a woman has died from her injuries sustained in a crash on the city’s northwest side Wednesday night.

At around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday the DMPD was contacted by the Polk County Medical Examiner’s Office regarding a patient, identified as 38-year-old Margarita Santiago-Popovski, who had died at a metro hospital presumably from injuries sustained in a crash.

An investigation was launched and the DMPD said it was discovered that Santiago-Popovski was connected to a vehicle that was found crashed and abandoned Thursday morning in the 1200 block of School Street. Investigators were later able to piece together that Santiago-Popovski crashed the vehicle at roughly 10:30 p.m. Wednesday night and was then taken from the scene to her home in West Des Moines at about midnight, the DMPD said. Roughly an hour and a half later, West Des Moines EMS responded to her home and transported her to a metro hospital, where she later died from her injuries.

The investigation into the crash that led to Santiago-Popovski’s death is ongoing. The DMPD said this is the sixth traffic-related death in the city in 2025.

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