Houston Bus Accident Lawyer

In Iredell County, a bus that was carrying army reservists crashed on Friday afternoon. The bus was carrying a total of forty-five soldiers in it. It had the 991st Company of Transportation, which it was taking to the National Guard Armory in Salisbury from Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

Justin Furr, a nineteen-year-old army reservist, was one of the people who were in the bus while the accident occurred. The army reservists were going back home after a tough training period of three weeks at Fort McCoy Army Base in Wisconsin.

Justin Furr said that he knew that one day if he was sent to fight overseas, he would definitely have the risk of losing his life because of bullets or because of other explosive devices, but he could never imagine that he would have to risk his life sitting in a bus.

On Friday, the soldiers were all taking a nap in the bus when the bus slipped because of the rain. Furr said that he woke up and saw that the bus was going over the hill. The scene was quite scary.

The bus was driving on a two-lane road when it tried stopping for a car taking a turn to the left. The brake was so hard that the bus slipped and tipped over on the right side of the road. Almost all the windows of that side shattered. Furr was also sitting on the right side, so he fell on the side with the bus and other people. The army reservists in confusion started screaming, shouting, crying, and running and stampeded over Furr.

The bus slid about eight feet down. Furr said that many of the soldiers got their bones broken, and one of them even had a fractured hip. Another soldier has possible damage to his spleen, Furr added.

The N.C. Highway Patrol reported that 15 of the injured soldiers were given treatments on the spot, and the rest (twenty-nine) were taken to hospital.

Master Sgt. Patrick Compton, who is an army spokesman, said that by Saturday, all of the injured soldiers recovered and so were released from the hospital. Only one, whose name is Spc. Rodney McDonalds, was still kept in the hospital at Lake Norman Regional Medical Centre in Mooresville. Compton said that Rodney McDonalds was in better condition now.

Compton also said that McDonalds was slowly recovering, and that his condition was gradually improving. He said that McDonald is sore, but he has his spirits high.

Furr was a mechanic for the Army Reserve. He was working in a Salisbury warehouse for Food Lion as a civilian. Furr did not get any major injuries, but he knew that unlike him, many of his fellow soldiers were not that lucky.

The bus driver, Christopher Reed of Randleman, had a good record of driving, but he still got charged with a traffic infraction. This is because he slammed on the brakes to avoid collision with the car in front of it.

A European bus transport was involved in another major bus accident. In the accident, 39 people got killed and 10 were injured. It was one of the most tragic and awful road accidents in the history of Italy.

Initially it was said by the reporters that the bus was at such a high speed that it hit four or five cars before banging into the roadside barriers. The bus was carrying 50 people, many of which were children.

Sunday night, when this dreadful accident took place was indeed a very saddening night for the people of Italy. Letta canceled all his official and private visits and meetings and showed a deep feeling of grief for the disaster that happened that night. He said it was a huge tragedy and that it was a very sad day for Italy. He had no words to express his grief.

An operator of the motorway made a statement saying that although there were clear signs for keeping a low speed on the motorway, the bus seemed to be moving at a very high speed among the other vehicles in the traffic that were moving at a lower speed.

Alessio Barbarulo, who is head of the division of the local fire brigade that did the rescue operation, said that the impact was so strong that even the tough barriers got broken instead of stopping the accident.

The scenario of the dreadful accident made many hearts cry out loud. All the dead bodies were first covered in white sheets, and then they were lined up on the sides of the roads, after which the ambulances took them away.

As reported by a police official, thirty-six people died immediately on the spot, whereas three more passengers died later in the hospital.

Maurizio Lupi, who is the Infrastructure Minister, declared that there was apparently no technical fault or problem with the bus that might have landed the bus into such a disaster. He says that to discover the main cause of how the accident actually happened would definitely require time. Until then, he said that making any vague possibility or conclusion about the mishap would not be appropriate.

Avillino, the prosecutor’s office official, said that keeping in view that the bus driver died in the crash too, he would also investigate for any other possibilities that might have been the cause of the accident.

The victims in the accident were all Italians who were travelling to the town of Telese Terme or a nearby lake that is famous for fishing.

A bus hits a mountain-side in Tachira, which is a western Venezuelan state, taking the lives of at least nine people on board while injuring up to thirty five people. The accident took place on the seventh of August, 2013 on Tuesday on the highway.

The highway plays the stage for yet another calamity after the mayhem caused by a major accident by a bus and truck collision just last week. Fourteen people died as a result of this accident in the Central State of Guarico. This is yet another major accident with such a great number of victims in the past week in Venezuela. It, however, is a greater and more severe tragedy than the latter.

Shortly after the accident, the state television had a small conversation with the national director of emergency services. Said Director Luis Diaz Curbelo, “We have declared up to thirty five people injured while nine are declared dead for now.”

The tragic incident took place in the Chururu sector somewhere along the Troncal 5 highway, the director said. It took place in Venezuela right in the middle of the vacation season, he added further.

Among those who died was the bus driver himself. According to the director, the investigations into the causes of the bus crash are being carried out as to find out the real reason behind the tragic disaster.  Relevant authorities are looking into the possible reasons that lead to the crash, which caused the loss of the bus driver`s life. The most probable cause for the bus crash however, according to Curbelo was an unexpected failure in mechanics of the vehicle.

“Quite predictably, the driver crashed into the hill as he lost control,” he said.

The bus that was in the accident was owned by Expresos Los Llanos.  It had left Upata, a town located in the Bolivar, the southern state.

Following these calamities, an emergency state was announced on the country’s roads for 90 days. The Venezuelan government said it was “crucial” that measures be taken as soon as possible to improve the structure of the highways of the state which have depreciated in recent years when no heed was paid to the maintenance and care of the roadways. If the matter was ignored further, facing such tragedies every now and then would be inevitable, they said.

A school bus traveling towards the Long Island Aquarium on Wednesday morning met with an accident in Riverhead.

It was reported that nine were injured and sent to hospital. According to the police, none of the injuries were very serious among any of the nine that went to the hospital.

The Riverhead Town police stated that on a fine Wednesday, the accident took place at around 11:22 A.M. The school bus just left a Bronx day camp and was headed to Riverhead when it “hit into the rear of a pickup truck,” is how police described it.

The accident took place around West Main Street’s corner, a little west of the junction with Raynor Avenue. According to police, the GMC pickup, which was stuck in traffic, was stopped eastbound while letting another vehicle turn. Just then a school bus traveling behind the pickup, which is owned by Boro Transport of Brooklyn, failed to stop and crashed into the back of the pickup.

The school bus in the accident was on a field trip to an aquarium on Long Island, and according to the police, had 32 children and nine adults on the bus. Out of the nine that were injured, there were four children with ages between 6 to 12, as well as 4 adults from the bus, the ninth being the bus driver himself. The injured were sent off to the Peconic Bay Medical Center and according to the police all were stated to have “non-life-threatening injuries.”

The Mastic Fire Department, Mattituck Fire Department, along with the Riverhead Town Volunteer Ambulance Corps, the Manorville Fire Department and Wading River Fire Department all volunteered and worked together in transporting the injured.

The bus in the accident was brought in for an inspection after the accident by the Department of Transportation, said the police. The bus driver and the pickup driver were not issued summons. What triggered the terrific response of emergency responders, after the shoulder injury of a child was reported, turned out to be a pretty “minor accident,” as police stated.

The accident scene on Main Street was misreported in the beginning as a huge commotion, because of the presence of all the emergency vehicles and manpower through the East End coming in on the scene to help. Thankfully, it turned out to be just a “minor accident” with “non-life-threatening injuries” to only nine people out of the forty-one people on board.

Early in the morning on July 23, 2013, a double-decker passenger bus collided with a delivery truck and then caught fire on one of Thailand’s busiest and deadliest highways. The accident killed nineteen of the passengers and injured twenty-three others.

Most of the passengers and the driver of the bus were still trapped inside when it suddenly burst into flames. Rescue workers had to work quickly to extinguish the flames and get the remaining passengers off of the bus.

The bus was headed to Bangkok traveling on Mitraphab highway, which is located in the Kaeng Khoi district of the province of Saraburi.

Saraburi is sixty miles north of the city of Bangkok.

According to news reports, the driver of the truck involved in the crash suffered injuries to his head and legs. The truck driver was on his way with a load to a local factory. The truck driver has not yet been identified. Officials believe that he may have dozed off, and that is what caused the collision.

After the crash between the bus and the truck, another accident occurred during the traffic pile up that injured a woman who was a passenger in a car.

The crash has raised major concerns about the safety of roads in the region. The section of road where the accident happened is beautiful, bordered by beaches, but has an extremely high volume of accident-related deaths.

This crash happened a day after a tour bus making its way to Bangkok from Phang-nga province crashed. Twenty-two people were injured in the collision.

In Thailand these types of deadly crashes have become weekly occurrences. Thailand has one of the worst road safety records in the world.

Thailand sees over twenty-two million visitors a year. Because of the large amount of tourists on the roads, road safety is a major concern.

Countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and United States, have actually issued warnings to tourists about the bad road conditions in their countries . The newly released British Foreign & Commonwealth Office annual “British Behavior Abroad” report states, “Thailand has seen a significant increase in hospitalizations and deaths, despite fewer cases worldwide. While acknowledging that an aging population attributed to the increase, road traffic accidents, many involving young people on mopeds.” The report also cites, “serious accidents involving other vehicles including cars, coaches and mini-buses” as being a risk to its citizens. “Many accidents are due to poor vehicle and driver safety standards,” reads the advice.

“In Thailand, a country with 50,000 British residents and over 870,000 British visitors per year, there were 68,582 road traffic incidents resulting in 9,205 deaths involving both Thai residents and tourists in 2011,” says the U.K. government post announcing the new campaign. “In contrast 1,901 people were killed in road accidents in the UK in 2011.”

More than 9,700 people were killed in road accidents in Thailand last year alone.

On July 12, 2013, a man riding his bicycle was struck by an Ohio State University RTA bus. The accident happened on Broadway Avenue, near East 34th Street, in Cleveland, Ohio. The accident happened early Thursday morning.

Both the man on the bike and Bus 15 were traveling north toward downtown Cleveland. The bus attempted to pass the bike when, according to the bus driver, the man on the bike cut in front of the bus.

According to the latest press releases, the Columbus police still have not figured out why the man fell from his bicycle after cutting in front of the bus. He died hours later.

Sixty five year old Raymond E. Hursey of North Linden, Ohio died at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center on June 26. The accident occurred around 1:45 p.m. and Hursey died about three hours later.

According to police reports, Hursey was traveling on his bike south on Summit. He was riding along the side of the bus driven by James B. Glover, 21.

A witness to the accident told authorities that it appeared that Hursey may have struck a parked car, which then caused him to fall under the bus. Hursey was struck by the rear tires of the bus. The bus driver was not injured and to date no charges have been filed.

The director of marketing and communications at Ohio State University, Lindsay M. Komlanc, told local media that James B. Glover has been employed by the universities bus services for about fourteen months and had no prior accidents. He is still employed by Ohio State University.

According to Franklin County Municipal Court records, Raymond Hursey was charged back in January of 2013 with driving under the influence after he was involved in what was called a minor hit-and-run accident on Westerville Road. He was scheduled to be sentenced a week after his death.

This was Cleveland’s second bus-bicycle collision since May. Back on May 22, popular Cleveland chef and local business owner Jonathon Sawyer of The Greenhouse Tavern fame was said to be riding his bike on Euclid Avenue when he was clipped by a RTA bus as they both turned onto East 45th Street. The incident happened around 8:15 a.m.

Sawyer was not injured in the incident. Later in the day he posted on Twitter,  “Wow. Just got hit by an #RTA bus in #CLe, not injured but shaken up. Drivers please check your side.” The story was a media buzz after Sawyer posted the following on his Facebook page, “Today an RTA bus driver who was not obeying traffic laws hit me. This issue is bigger than Jonathon Sawyer or the RTA, it has to do with bike and driver safety. It has to do with raising awareness of drivers, city and it’s citizen. There is an amazing cycling community that has been flourishing here in Cleveland over the past ten years and they deserve to be safe. #sharetheroad”

Ohio laws state that all drivers are required to maintain what is called a ‘safe distance’ from cyclists. The law, however does not state a specific distance. A city ordinance in Cleveland requires that drivers stay a minimum of three feet from cyclists.

On June 16, 2013 a section of the westbound lane in Ionia County, Michigan was shut down for over six hours after an accident occurred between two semi-trucks and a Greyhound bus.

The Monday accident happened close to eleven a.m. where the highway connects to M-66 between the exit and entrance ramps to the highway.

A preliminary investigation by Michigan State Police shows that traffic had come to a standstill due to congestion caused by an earlier accident.

According to police, a semi truck that was stopped was struck by another semi truck, which then collided with a Greyhound bus. Anetta Clark, a passenger on the Greyhound bus, was headed to a funeral. She told media, “I was just sitting in the back and all of a sudden my head went into the window and heard a big boom. I’m grateful to be alive. I really am.”

A 42-year-old man from Chicago was driving one of the two semi trucks involved in the accident. He was life-flighted to a local hospital with life threatening injuries. Doctors say he is in stable condition at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids.

Twenty passengers aboard the Greyhound bus complained of minor injuries and were treated on the scene. The second semi-truck driver was also treated on the scene for minor injuries.

The officer placed in charge of the accident investigation told media the cause of the wreck appears to be “drivers paying too little attention for not only the big crash, but also minor mishaps up the road that caused the traffic jam. There is road construction in the area too, which also may have been a factor.”

Virgil Nells, a passenger on the Greyhound bus, who is a professional driver credited the bus driver’s care with preventing the vehicles stopped ahead of them from becoming part of the accident. He told media, “I was looking ahead and noticed that there was a traffic jam, and he applied his brakes and started slowing down, and gave himself a nice bit of distance between himself and the stopped traffic jam, and then that’s when the truck hit.”

Passengers on the Greyhound bus had to wait over two hours for transportation to reach them. They waited in the shelter of the luggage compartment to stay out of the hot sun.

Traffic was re-routed off the expressway at the Muir exit for almost five hours.

Scott Feenstra, a motorist at the scene, called in to the 1340 WJRW newsroom during the 2:30 news. He said that he had been stuck in the traffic for well over two hours.

Around 4 p.m., motorists were detoured to the exit ramp at M-66 to go up and over the bridge to bypass the accident and get back onto the expressway.

Westbound I-96 was not clear until around 6:30 p.m. Another accident was reported about ten minutes later near the Portland exit in Ionia County.

On July 3, 2013, nine people were injured after a chain reaction crash between two buses and a tractor-trailer took place on Southbound Interstate 95. The accident backed up traffic for well over twenty miles.

State police records state, “the accident took place shortly before 10 a.m., when an unknown vehicle cut off the tractor-trailer in the center lane. Both the driver of the truck, owned by New Jersey-based C&J Appliances and the driver of a Dartmouth Coach bus slowed suddenly. The driver of the second bus, owned by Autocar Preference Limited in Quebec, tried to stop, but couldn’t brake in time and hit the Dartmouth Coach from behind. The impact slammed the Coach bus into the tractor trailer.”

A driver in a vehicle following the bus also could not stop their vehicle in time, and they crashed into the back of the bus

Over the past few years, charter bus companies have come under great scrutiny. The closer look at the industry came as a result of a 2011 crash involving fifteen passengers traveling from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville to Chinatown in New York City. The accident happened at the exit sign on I-95 in the Bronx.

Nancy Laren, a passenger on the bus told media, “I was looking out the window and I felt the bus put on the brakes and he kept strengthening on the brakes. I remember hitting my head.”

The accident backed up for miles and caused major issues for surrounding roadways.

The drivers of the bus, car, and tractor-trailer were taken to the hospital with complaints of pain. Three passengers in the car and three passengers on the bus were also taken to local hospitals. The injured included three adults and two teenagers, who were taken to St. Vincent’s Medical Center where they were listed in stable condition.

Fifty-six passengers a board the bus refused medical attention.

The driver of the Quebec bus and the driver of the Dodge were both issued citations for following too closely.

Laren was on the bus headed to visit family that lived on Long Island for the holiday weekend. She did not get a long weekend with her family because Bridgeport Hospital kept her for observation.

Once released Laren decided to go home,  “I just want to go home. I’m in too much pain. I just want to go home.”

Ken Hunter, Operations director for Dartmouth Coach, Ken Hunter said in a statement that, “Twenty-three people were on board his company’s bus, and that Laren and the two other passengers who went to the hospital did so as “a precautionary measure. None appear to have been seriously injured and we expect that they’ll be released shortly if they haven’t been yet.”

This was a daily run from New Hampshire to New York for the bus.

Emergency crews and firefighters from several towns were at the scene within minutes of the crash. A hazardous materials team was dispatched to the crash site from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

A head on collision between two buses in the Ukraine resulted in the death of both bus drivers and six others, according to a statement given to the media by the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry press office. Details about the crash and injuries were slow coming and confusing at first. First reports stated only the bus driver of the Bulgarian bus had been killed, but quickly the death toll rose to four killed on the scene, and then four passengers died after being transported to the hospital.

The deadly crash happened just before 8 a.m. on Thursday, July 11, 2013 not far from the town of Kovel in the Volinska region. The driver of one of the buses was killed in the crash. A Bulgarian and a Ukrainian bus were involved in the accident. The Ukrainian bus served the route where the crash happened regularly. The bus driver of the Ukrainian bus was rushed to the hospital where he later died.

The death toll of the accident was initially just two, but overnight grew to eight as the seriously injured died after being admitted to the hospital. Among the dead was a Bulgarian national, according to the Bulgaria Foreign Ministry.

In initial statements, the Bulgarian ministry had reported to media that the one of the drivers of the bus, had been killed, but that statement was amended and the second bus driver was reported as critical in a local hospital. He soon after died from his injuries.

One of the buses involved had Bulgarian license plates and it carried 50 Belarusian tourists, including ten children.

Bulgarian media reported that the Bulgarian bus carried Belarusian tourists traveling to Bulgaria. The second bus carried a group traveling from the town of Lutsk. They were on a trip to the Shatsk lakes, which are located near the border with Poland and Ukraine.

The Foreign Ministry said, “We are co-operating with local authorities and will release more information as it becomes available.”

The Bulgarian National Radio, BNR, and the Russian RIA Novosti reported, “Another 22 people have been injured, some gravely.”

The Bulgarian bus was owned by the Haskovo-based transport company, Magi Tour. One of the victims was a small child. The bus was transporting fifty people from Belarus to a camp located in the Bulgarian summer report called the “Sunny Beach.”

On the bus was forty children who were sixteen years or under, eight adults, and the two drivers. The total number of injured was twenty-seven.

“There were two Bulgarian buses, eight people died, including two Bulgarian drivers,” the embassy said. “The two drivers were carrying 50 Belarusian citizens, including 40 children,” the diplomatic agency added.

The Bulgarian Embassy has kept in constant contact with Ukrainian authorities and is providing any assistance that is needed. The Bulgarian Ambassador traveled to the crash site. A group from Magi Tour also headed to the Ukraine.

The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry expressed their deepest sympathies to the families of the victims through local and national media outlets.

Ukrainian authorities state that they are now working to establish the nationalities of the victims and surviving passengers on both buses.

In Wales, a father of two got whiplash along with injuries to his lower back in a road collision between two buses earlier this week. The victim was a man named Paulo Bicho, who claimed he flew off of the back seat and down to the floor as the First Cymru vehicle collided with a bus moving in the opposite direction.

When the collision between the two buses occurred, the vehicles struck sideways on and both of the buses rained broken window glass over the passengers who were sitting in the bus, claimed Mr. Bicho.

The impact had occurred between the number sixty-three bus and the First Cymru. It happened on the road to Cefn Cribwr, close to Bridgend. It was approximately 5.30 p.m. Mr. Bicho described the accident as “very scary” and “like an explosion.”

The bus company commented on the incident and said it was “deeply regrettable” and that the situation was being “taken incredibly seriously.”

The 26 year old Mr. Bicho was once a professional footballer with his origins in Portugal. He now lives with his five year old son Presley and three year old Lorenzo and his fiancée in Kenfig Hill. He told the press that “I have whiplash and have hurt the muscles in my back.”

The injuries were so severe that the waiter in the Poco Poco Restaurant could not complete his duties after the crash. He then thought it necessary to check into the Princess of Wales hospital for medical treatment.
He told the press that others had suffered minor injuries and that they were being treated.

Besides a police car checking the situation while driving by, no contact was made with the emergency services.

Some passengers traveling to Porthcawl claimed that they had suffered no injuries. They were then transferred to other transport.

A comment was made on behalf of First Cymru, which stated, “We can confirm that there was an incident involving two of our service 63 buses earlier this week, whereby the buses came together on a narrow piece of road. This incident is deeply regrettable and resulted in some of the bus windows being damaged. The drivers of both vehicles are being spoken to as part of the investigation into what happened.

“We would like to apologize for any distress caused as a result of this matter and would like to take this opportunity to reassure customers that the matter is being taken incredibly seriously.”