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.