Bus Accidents

At least five people have been killed and 38 others injured on Thursday when a bus veered off the road and hit a tree, catching alight in India’s Bolanigr district in Odisha, said police authorities. Two women were among the dead.

The passenger bus was travelling from Bhubaneswar towards Sinappali in Nuapada when the accident took place, just three kilometres from the town in the early hours of Thursday morning. It is not clear what the cause of the accident was, however surviving passengers said that the bus driver may have been on his cell phone when he lost control of the bus and hit into a tree on the side of the road.

Soon after crashing into the tree, the bus caught on fire. Five passengers were burnt to death, while 38 others suffered a variety of injuries ranging from mild lacerations to severe burns. The injured passengers were treated at the scene by first responders and then transported via ambulance to the Bolangir District Headquarters Hospital. Once stabilized, two of the injured were transferred to VSS Medical College and Hospital in Burla, where they remain in a critical condition.

Two of the five deceased have been identified as Mrs Sakuntala Devi Agarwal, 55, of Boudh, and her six year old grandson, Srianshu Goel. Efforts are being made to contact family members and identify the remaining bodies, said police authorities.

The police are also on the hunt for the bus driver and the conductor of the bus, who both fled from the scene of the accident.

In other bus accident news, 34 people were injured in Ohio in the United States after a bus rear-ended a passenger car on a highway near Bowling Green on Tuesday evening at approximately 10.30pm. All five passengers in the car, including two young children, were transported to hospital with non-life threatening injuries with 29 passengers on the bus also sustained minor injuries. One of the bus passengers was transported to hospital by helicopter, where he was treated for more serious injuries.

The bus, which was operated by the Consolidated Biscuit Co., was transporting employees back from work. Although the cause of the accident is not yet know, police have reported that from the results of their initial investigation, alcohol and drugs did not play a role in the accident.

This accident was the second bus accident in Ohio that day, after a bus carrying only the 75 year old driver crashed at 11.30pm on Tuesday night. He was not injured.

The driver of a Pennsylvania city bus were treated to a rather unexpected passenger on Tuesday evening, when a white tailed deer crashed through the windshield of the bus and out the front door that the shocked bus driver subsequently opened.

There were no passengers on board the bus at the time, and the deer was caught on the bus’s security cameras frantically attempting to find a way to escape from the bus, running up and down the empty aisles until it found its way out of the open front door.

The driver of the bus, which was moving at the time, immediately stopped the CamTran bus and attempted to help the stunned creature find a way out. At first, the deer attempted to leap back through the shattered windscreen, but fell back into the bus before bounding to freedom.

Josh Yoder, a spokesman for CamTran, said that no one was injured in the incident. It is not clear what happened to the deer, but the animal did not appear to be seriously injured.

In more bus accident news, a tour bus carrying Florida school children on a field trip was hit by a runaway vehicle near New Orleans last week, killing one woman in the car and injuring four others. According to legal experts, the women in the car may decide to file a lawsuit in the case, despite appearing to be the parties at fault.

The car strayed into oncoming traffic on the I-10 after the driver appeared to lose control. It missed the first two of three buses from a Florida elementary school, but hit into the third bus. None of the passengers on board the bus were injured in the incident. However one passenger in the car was killed and the driver and three other passengers in the car were injured.

Legal experts say that this incident could lead to an unusual lawsuit in which the passengers of a car involved in an accident sue their driver for any injuries that are not covered by medical insurance. In such accidents, the driver is liable for damages and may be found guilty of culpable homicide if the family members of the dead passenger decide to sue. Lawsuits from the passengers on board the bus may also be forthcoming in the future, as lawyers warn that injuries such as whiplash following bus accidents may only show up days or weeks after the incident. 

The death toll of a bus accident on the Kullu Mandi national highway in India has reached 40, after four more people succumbed to their injuries in hospital and a further four bodies were recovered from the Beas river, said authorities on Thursday.

The accident occurred in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh in the evening on Wednesday, when the privately owned bus, which was transporting approximately 70 passengers at the time, skidded off slippery roads on a mountain pass and plunged into the Beas River, close to the town of Kullu. The bus was carrying passengers to attend a three day local festival in the town of Ani.  

A number of surviving passengers were rescued from the river by recreational rafters, as Jhiri, close to the accident scene, is a popular rafting destination.

Regional police chief Vinod Dhawan announced in a press conference that further bodies had been recovered from the river and from the partially submerged bus overnight, with some injured passengers dying of their injuries in hospital, bringing the total death toll to 40. 21 women and five children were among those who died in the inside, said Dhawan in a press conference in Kullu, which is approximately 200 kilometers north of the Himachal Pradesh capital, Shimla. Thus far, 35 of the fatalities in the accident have been identified and their next of kin have been notified. 

As well as the fatalities, 23 passengers were injured in the accident and are being treated in local hospitals, where 5 passengers remain in a critical condition, according to a spokesperson from Kullu hospitals. 

According to the police, two passengers are still missing and rescuers are continuing the search for bodies and survivors. The police also launched a region wide search for the driver of the bus, who allegedly jumped out of the bus before it plunged into the river. Eyewitnesses reported that the bus driver lost control of the vehicle while he was talking on his mobile phone. According to a new release by Kullu police, the bus driver has since been arrested. 

The state government has ordered a thorough investigation into the incident, with the transport minister Kamal Kumar sending a team of traffic and railway police officials to conduct the investigation.

India has some of the world’s most dangerous roads, with more than 110 000 people being killed in road traffic accidents in the country each year. Difficult driving conditions, poorly maintained vehicles, winding mountainous roads and driver error have been blamed for India’s high road fatality rates.

A woman has been killed and four others sustained minor injuries after a tour bus carrying grade school pupils collided with a sedan passenger car in New Orleans at 10am on Thursday. The accident occurred on the I-10 West, close to Michoud Boulevard in eastern New Orleans.

According to initial reports  from the New Orleans Police Department, who were the first responders on the scene, the tour bus was carrying children on a school tour from Crestview, Florida when the accident occurred. A lone woman driver was travelling along the I-10 eastbound in a maroon Honda Accord near the offramp to Michoud Boulevard when she lost control of her car on the rain slicked highway. The driver veered into the westbound lanes of traffic, and was hit into break da bank by the oncoming bus from behind. There were 42 children on board the bus at the time of the incident.

The mangled wreckage of the Honda ended up on the island between the two lanes of the highway, while the bus driver swerved the bus and pulled off the highway into the adjacent woods. The driver of the Honda, whose identity has been withheld from the media pending notification of her next of kin, was declared dead on the scene by emergency first responders. Four of the children on the bus sustained minor injuries and were transported to hospital by ambulance, where they remain in a stable condition, said local authorities.

The I-90 both Eastbound and Westbound was closed for more than two hours following the accident, while the wreckage was cleared from the scene, with several miles of traffic backed up on both sides. The road was officially reopened at 12.30 once the remains of the vehicles had been removed from the interstate.

In other bus accident news this week, five people were killed and a further 42 people injured in a bus accident in China’s Qinghai Province on Thursday morning. According to Chinese authorities, the bus accident occurred at approximately 6.40 am, when a tour bus travelling from the city of Chengdu, capital of China’s southwest Sichuan Province, overturned after the bus driver lost control on a sharp hairpin bend. The bus was en route to Qinghai Yushi’s Tibet Autonomous Prefecture at the time of the accident. Officials are currently conducting an investigation into the cause of the accident, said local media reports citing the provincial public security department. 

Former English rugby player Danny Cipriani has been discharged from hospital on Thursday after he received treatment for a concussion when he was involved in a collision with a bus, said a spokesperson for his current rugby club, Sale Sharks.

The 25 year old flyhalf was on his way home from a night out in the city of Leeds in northern England with his team mates from Sale. According to eye witness reports, he attempted to cross a road to join his friends but appeared to misjudge the speed on an oncoming bus, that struck into him.

Cipriani made light of his injuries on Twitter, thanking fans for their well wishes and prayers. “My ribs are a bit sore. Feel like I’ve been hit by a bus…” he quipped.

A spokesperson for the club said that Cipriani was transported to hospital via ambulance, where he was diagnosed with a mild concussion and treated for some minor lacerations and bruises. Cipriani had a  brief history playing for England, with seven English caps under his belt. He joined Sale Sharks last year after signing a three year contract with the club, in an attempt to revive his rugby career following a controversial stint playing for Australian rugby club, the Melbourne Rebels.

While living in Australia, Cipriani received disciplinary action and constant media attention after he repeatedly breeched team discipline guidelines. Most notably, Cipriani found himself in the spotlight in 2011 after he stole a bottle of vodka from the bar of a local nightclub while out on the town with his team mates. He was later suspended from the club for a month after breaching team curfews and missing important training sessions.

In other bus accident news this week, a funeral service for 5 year old Ta’Miya La’Shae Watson, who was killed in a school accident earlier this week in Georgia, will be held on Saturday. The funeral will be held at the Greater Zion Hill Baptist church, followed by Ta’Miya’s burial at the Macon Memorial Park Cemetery.

Ta’Miya was killed on Monday afternoon by a Bibb County school bus, while she was walking home from school. The exact circumstances of the accident are not yet clear, but it appears that the driver did not see the little girl as she was crossing the road. Ta’Miya was transported to hospital with serious injuries, but later passed away in surgery. 

Four British tourists have been seriously injured and the bus driver killed after the tour bus in which they were travelling crashed in the French Alps.

A French prosecutor who is conducting the preliminary investigation into the accident says that brake failure seems likely to have been the cause of the crash, and praised the bus driver for his courage and for taking actions that may have saved the lives of his passengers.

The tour bus was owned by British bus company Classic Coaches, and was carrying 26 young British citizens, mostly in their 20s, who were on their way home after working at ski resorts in the Alps for the winter. The bus was traversing a mountainous pass near the popular resort town of Alpe d’Huez when the it veered off the road on a hairpin bend, smashing into a cliff face and bursting into flames. The accident occurred on the 21^st of a series of treacherous hairpin bends along the pass, at approximately 1.45 pm on Tuesday afternoon.

Grenoble prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat, who is in charge of the investigation into the accident, said that the full investigation is likely to take some time, but the most likely cause of the accident was brake failure.

According to accounts from surviving passengers, the bus driver had shouted to the passengers that the bus’s brakes were not working as the bus flew down the pass, traversing the hairpin bends at high speed. The driver was killed instantly in the accident, and four of the passengers sustained serious injuries. 22 other passengers sustained moderate to minor injuries, and have been transported to the CHU hospital in Grenoble where they are receiving treatment.

The French Junior minister for transport, Frederic Culliver, visited the survivors of the accident in hospital on Tuesday evening. Culliver praised the deceased bus driver for his ‘remarkable courage’ and said that his actions in the moments leading up to the accident saved many lives. Culliver was accompanied on his visit to the hospital by the British Ambassador in France, Sir Peter Rickets.

The Classic Coaches company that operated the bus has confirmed that the bus was en route from the Serre Chevalier resort to a number of points in the UK where it would be dropping the passengers at home. The managing director of the company, Heath Williams, has extended his condolences and support to the bus driver’s family members.

A Cardinal Coach Line charter bus crashed Thursday (April 12^th, 2013) near Dallas, Texas on its way to an Oklahoma casino, leaving two dead and forty-one injured.

Federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are still working to ascertain what caused the accident. What is known is that the bus was in Irving traveling northbound on the President George Bush Turnpike near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport when it swerved across the highway without warning, hitting the concrete barriers on the side of the road and then overturning on the median.

The bus was filed with forty-five elderly people, all traveling to Durant, Oklahoma to visit the Choctaw Casino Resort together. According to the State Trooper Sergeant Lonny Haschel, spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, reported that the two fatalities were the organizer of the trip (“Casino” Sue Taylor, as she was called, from Hurst, aged eighty-one) and Paula Hahn, aged sixty-nine, from Fort Worth. According to her daughter, Marsha, “Casino” Sue had been organizing trips for her senior group for the past ten years.

The fifteen most critically injured, including the driver of the bus, were rushed to Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital, four of whom were placed in critical condition and one underwent surgery. Fourteen were taken to Irving’s Baylor Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Another five were taken to Irving’s Las Colinas Medical Center where they were given CAT scans for head injuries and then released.

Witness Ed Cluck, among the first on the scene, stopped his car when he saw the wreck and the smoke. He ran to the bus, unlatched its roof panels and assisted eight of the passengers off of the bus. He said people were piled on top of each other inside.

Robert Hare also stopped to help. He said many of the elderly passengers were in shock as he and other rescuers pulled and carried them off of the bus. He says that some had broken bones as well as cuts and bruises.

Survivor Dan Risik said he feels lucky to be alive and retells how quickly and unexpectedly the crash happened. He was seated near the middle of the bus and had his leg trapped by a woman landing on it when the bus overturned. He himself was lying on top of his friend.

Risik also reports that most of the passengers were not wearing seat belts, a common safety concern in buses.

Risik himself was taken to Baylor Medical Center, but suffered only superficial scrapes and was released shortly after 1:00pm.

One man has been killed and several children injured in an accident involving a school bus in Newton County, Georgia, according to reports from local authorities.

The accident occurred on Georgia Highway 36 near the High Point region, on Friday 29 March, according to a spokesperson from the Newton County Sheriff’s Office.

The director of public relations for the Newton County School System,  Sherri Davis-Viniard, has been in correspondence with the press with updates about the accident. According to Davis-Viniard, the school bus was transporting students from Indian Creek Middle School when the accident occurred, at the intersection of Moore’s Road and the Georgia Highway 36.

Georgia State Patrol officer Gordy Wright later confirmed that there was a head on collision between the school bus and a passenger car. The driver of the passenger car, who has been identified as 21 year old James Alexander Cooper of Covington, died in the accident.

According to eye witness reports, Cooper was attempting to make a left turn onto the highway from his house. He appeared to misjudge the distance of the oncoming bus, and pulled into the bus’s path. He was killed instantly. Wright said that there will be no charges filed in the accident, although a thorough investigation into the cause of the incident is ongoing. There is no evidence of aussie pokies negligence or reckless driving on the part of the school bus driver, who has an immaculate safety record.

Emergency personnel were dispatched immediately to the scene where they declared Cooper dead. Of the 16 school children who were on board the bus at the time, only one sustained minor injuries, and no children had to be transported to hospital. All of the students were thoroughly assessed at the scene and were discharged home with their parents, said Davis-Viniard.  Another school bus was also dispatched to the accident scene to transport the uninjured students home. The bus sustained significant damage and will more than likely be totalled.

Newton County School District officials and deputies from the Georgia State Patrol are investigating the accident, and will issue an accident report some weeks from now. NCSO lieutenant Tyrone Oliver said that Ga. Highway 36 was closed for several hours following the accident, in the High Point area, in order to clear the scene. Traffic was rerouted on to the Henderson Mill Road southbound and the Channing Cope Road to Ga. Highway 162.

An inquiry into a 2011 school bus accident near the popular tourist town of Knysna in which 14 school children died and 44 others were injured has begun at the Knysna Magistrate’s Court.

The inquiry, taking the form of a civil trial, aims to determine the cause of the tragic accident in the community of Rheenendal, just outside Knysna on the Garden Route, a popular tourist attraction in South Africa’s Western Cape province.

Legal teams representing the family members of the 15 children who were killed in the accident said that 12 witnesses would be called to the stand to testify in the first week of the trial. Court proceedings began in the Knysna Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

Prior to the start of the trial, legal representatives representing all the parties involved in the case, including the family members of the deceased, survivors who were injured in the accident and the company that was operating the bus, visited the scene of the tragic accident.

14 school children below the age of 13 were killed when their school bus veered off the road and plunged into river swollen by recent rains in Rheenendal in August 2011. The driver of the bus was also killed in the incident.

Initial investigations into the accident did not reveal an obvious cause for the crash. It appears that the driver of the bus lost control. Reports that the driver may have fallen asleep behind the wheel have not been substantiated by evidence, and the trial aims to look further into the possible cause of the accident. Once the cause has been established, it will then be up to the justice system to determine which parties should be liable for the deaths and injuries.

The court room has been packed to capacity with members of the media, as well as family members and survivors of the accident, and emotions have been high in the first days of the trial. “This is very emotional for the family members,” said lawyer Jerald Andrews, who is representing some of the accident victims.

This first stage of the hearing is expected to last three days. 24 witnesses in total will be called to the stand, with 12 due to testify tomorrow.

Road traffic accidents are common in South Africa, killing thousands of people each year. Authorities are currently still investigating another deadly bus accident in the Hex River Valley region of the Western Cape that killed at least 24 people last week.

A lacrosse player from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania who was injured in a bus accident in Carlise on Saturday while the team was being transported to a match has filed a law suit against the bus company.

In the suit, Amanda Michalski claimed that the bus driver was driving recklessly and was guilty of negligence in the accident. Michalski is still hospitalized at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, where she is receiving treatment for minor injuries sustained in the accident.

Michalski filed the suit against Mlaker Transportation, Inc., the company that operated the bus, in a district court in Allegheny County on Thursday. She is being represented by lawyers from Philadelphia law firm Kline and Specter.

The bus driver, 61 year of Anthony Guatta, was killed instantly in the accident. The coach of the Seton Hill lacrosse team, Kristina Quigley from Greensburg, who was heavily pregnant at the time of the accident, was also killed in the accident. Quigley, 30, and her unborn child Jackson, were transported to Penn State Hershey Medical Centre from the scene of the accident, where they were pronounced dead after a brief attempt at resuscitation.

According to a statement released by the hospital, Michalski, who hails from Coon Rapids, Minnesota, is in stable condition and recovering from her injuries. She is a first year student at Seton Hill University.

In the lawsuit, Michalski claims that Mr. Guatta was driving recklessly at the time of the accident, and was unable to keep the vehicle under control while he was navigating bends at high speeds. The bus collided with a tree after veering off the road. The road was closed for several hours after the accident while rescue workers freed trapped passengers from the wreckage of the bus and treated the injured.

The amount for which Michalski is suing has not been released. Mlaker Transportation, in operation for more than 40 years, has a stellar safety record, with no previous fatal accidents. According to their website, the company were awarded with the US Department of Transportation’s highest safety recommendation, satisfactory.

Mlaker officials released a statement expressing their regret and condolences to the victims of the accident, stressing that the safety of their passengers remained the companies highest priority.

An investigation into the accident is currently ongoing. State police say that it could be several weeks before the official results of the investigation will be released.