Five dead after bus overturns
Workers today recovered the body of the driver of a bus loaded with foreign tourists that crashed en route to Canada, killing five people, including three Canadians, officials said.
The bus, which departed from New York Monday afternoon for Montreal, Canada, was carrying 52 passengers, including an undisclosed number of Americans, Canadian, Japanese, French and Britons, when it crashed last night, authorities said. At least four passengers were critically injured.
Three Canadians and two Americans, including the bus driver, were killed when the bus went over the guard rail and flipped into the grassy median as it passed a large truck, said State Police Maj Richard Smith.
An eyewitness told authorities it appeared to him that one of the tired failed on the front end of the bus, said Smith.
More than 30 people had been treated at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Medical Centre and several more were en route, said the hospital’s spokesman.
The patients were of all ages, including a few children, and had injuries including cuts, bruises and broken bones.
At least three were transferred to a hospital in Montreal for “neurosurgical issues,” Mike Hildebran added.
The bus was travelling north on Interstate 87 when it overturned near Elizabethtown, about 110 miles north of Albany.
The driver was identified as Ronald Burgess, 52, of Central Islip, New York. Two of the dead passengers were a 16-year-old boy from Montreal, Tambadou Souleymane, and an 81-year-old woman, Antonide Dorce, of Hempstead, New York. Two others, both Canadians, were not immediately identified pending notification of their families.
Rob Kaplan of Long Island, a second-year student at Concordia University in Montreal, was on his way back to school when the crash happened.
“I was asleep when the bus started skidding for no reason. It was the most terrible thing I’ve ever experienced,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, his right eye swollen shut and a cut above the eyebrow.
“We flipped over like four times and I was knocked out,” he said. “People had terrible injuries. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not really OK. Look at me. I’m in terrible pain, everything hurts. I don’t understand why it went off the road. People had injuries so much worse than mine.”
The exact number of injured and the extent of injuries was unknown today. Many spoke French, making it difficult to identify everyone on the bus, Smith said.
Interpreters were available for some of the victims.
The highway was reopened this morning near the crash site.
The bus, a model DL-3, just passed its annual Federal Department of Transportation inspection last week, Greyhound spokeswoman Anna Folmnsbee said.
The National Transportation Safety Board was monitoring the incident, but had not yet decided whether to launch an investigation, said agency spokesman Keith Holloway. The Federal Motor Carrier Agency also was notified about the accident and expected to investigate, officials said.
