A casino-bound tour bus met with an accident on Thursday. The accident occurred in Irwindale, California where the bus slipped from the foothill freeway near the San Gabriel freeway, which is about 20 miles on the eastern side of Los Angeles. As reported by the CHP, at least 50 people got hurt in the accident.
The CHP also said that the accident occurred in the eastbound lane of 210 at about 10 a.m. The aerial coverage responded immediately to the accident and reached the place where the accident happened. The firefighters brought along yellow, green, and red colored cloths for the people to distinguish the victims by the severity of their injuries. The red colored cloth indicated the most severely injured people.
A total of fifty-five people were injured in the accident, fifty-two of which were the bus passengers and the additional three people were in other vehicles that were involved in the accident and got hit by the bus.
The people injured in the accident mostly had minor injuries and a very few people had major injuries. The others just got moderately injured. There was no child involved in the accident and only adults that were of ages between 60 to 80 years were injured.
From the injured people, only five remained in the hospital until Thursday night. One of them was an 86-year-old man whose ribs got broken in the accident.
One of the passenger’s sons told NBC4 that before the crash, his mother feared the high speed at which the driver was driving the bus. Steven Zhang said that his mother told him that right before the accident, his mother was talking to the person sitting next to her about the fast speed of the bus, and that’s when the bus crashed. And after the crash she went into a state of shock. She could not remember anything because of the sudden crash.
The Southern California freeway was shut down because of the accident. Because the road was all blocked, the people in the cars took the chance to get out of the cars and witness the injured people going to the hospital on stretchers. A tow vehicle was used to pull the bus from the ditch.
A casino spokesman said that the bus belonged to the Monterey Park’s Da Zhen, which is a Chinese tour bus that offers day trips to casinos in Las Vegas and California, and was heading towards the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino. It was about to reach the casino at 10:30 a.m. on a day trip.
NBC4 found out through investigations that the company had safety violations.
Saul Gomez said that it would not be appropriate to determine any conclusion too early about the how the accident occurred. CHO’s Lt. Mark Garrett will thoroughly investigate the causes of the accident.