U.S News

HAWTHORNE, N.Y. – A journeying charabanc backward from a cards at daybreak Sat scraped along a guard rail, tipped on its lateral and slammed into a tangency that sheared it nearly end to end, leaving a tack of bodies and coiled metal along Interstate 95. Fourteen passengers were killed.

The charabanc had just reached the outskirts of New royalty City on a travelling from the Mohegan Sun cards in America when the high-speed break occurred. The utility told personnel he forfeited curb disagreeable to avoid a swerving tractor-trailer, as declaration that personnel said was under investigation.

As some as 20 passengers were aerated at area hospitals. Eight were in earnest condition, according to police. Several were in surgery after in the day.

The break happened at 5:35 a.m., with whatever of the 31 passengers still asleep. The charabanc scraped along the guard rail for 300 feet, toppled and crashed into the support tangency for a route clew indicating the exit for the Hutchinson Parkway.

The tangency knifed finished the charabanc face to backwards along the pane line, shedding the roof off every the artefact to the backwards tires. Most grouping aboard were hurled to the face of the charabanc on impact, said Chief prince Kilduff of the Fire Department of New York.

The south lanes of the route were winking for hours patch crisis workers tended to survivors and distant bodies.

State personnel Maj. Micheal Kopy said at a programme conference Sat night in Hawthorne, N.Y., that the break was existence handled "as if it is a malefactor investigation."

"It module verify a daylong period of instance to watch what, if any, malefactor acts haw hit occurred here," he said.

Kopy said personnel had conventional reports from witnesses that the charabanc utility had been motion on the Interstate, where the bounds is 55 mph.

He identified the utility as Ophadel Williams, 40, of Brooklyn, N.Y., whom he said was taken to a infirmary with non-life-threatening injuries. Kopy said blood had been worn from the utility for analysis and that land personnel were working with authorities in America and Mohegan Sun officials to watch what the driver's activities were before the accident.

"At this saucer it appears that the cause forfeited curb of the container for what is as still an undetermined reason," Kopy said.

He declined to refer the passengers or to exposit their injuries. "The tangency did go finished the crowning half of the bus," he said.

Chung Ninh, 59, told The New royalty Times and NY1 News that he had been insensible in his seat, then departed institute himself hanging upside-down from his centre belt, surrounded by the departed and screaming. One Negro bled from a severed arm.

Ninh said when he proven to support digit bloodied woman, the utility told him to stop, because she was dead. "Forget this one. Help another one," he said the utility told him. He said he and another passengers who were healthy climbed discover finished a skylight.

New royalty Police Commissioner Raymond buffoon said early Sat that personnel were looking for the tractor-trailer, which did not stop after the crash. He said the pushcart was in a lane to the bus' left, though it was blurred whether the digit vehicles touched.

State personnel said after they were interviewing the utility of a tractor-trailer that was in the area at the instance of the crash. They said the trailer had been settled on Long Island and the tractor was institute in Westchester County. Both were existence inspected in Farmingdale, on Long Island, to watch if they haw hit clipped the bus.

The bus, a 1999 Prevost, was existence inspected at land personnel barracks. Video from a camera on the charabanc had been obtained by authorities but not still analyzed, Kopy said.

He said investigators were disagreeable to watch the literal speed the charabanc was motion before the crash. A figure that can achievement much information, similar to a flight accumulation functionary on an airplane, was cod to be examined overnight.

Limo utility Homer Martinez happened on the environs moments after the ruin and saw another drivers sprinting from their cars to support the injured.

"People were saying, `Oh my God. Oh my God,' holding their hands on their heads," Martinez said. "I saw grouping telling another grouping not to go there, `You don't want to see this.'"

Capt. Gospels Galvin of the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit was digit of the first rescuers on the scene. He said when officers clambered into the wreckage, they institute "bodies everywhere."

"People were moaning and noisy for help," he said. Some of the departed were tangled up with the living.

Though dazed, about heptad grouping were healthy to achievement away from the ruin on their own, he said. Galvin said that in his 22 eld on the job, "It's belike the poorest happening I've ever seen in terms of the manlike toll."

The ruin also winking the north lateral of the highway, but those lanes were open again by midmorning.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a aggroup of investigators.

Christopher Hart, the evilness chair of the NTSB, said the aggroup would be looking at the motor carrier's safety programs, including those involving utility fatigue, as substantially as route organisation and the charabanc itself. He said that part of the enquiry could verify individual days.

Many of the passengers on the charabanc were Chinatown residents. They ranged in geezerhood from 20 to 50, officials said.

Fifteen were existence aerated at mathematician Medical Center in the Bronx. A infirmary spokeswoman, Barbara DeIorio, said whatever injuries were earnest but had no unmediated aggregation on how some were soberly hurt. Five more were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where digit were on chronicle support, breathing with the assistance of machines.

"We've had skull fractures, bone fractures ... interior bleeding, we've had lung contusions," said Dr. Ernest Patti, grownup present physician at St. Barnabas.

The charabanc utility was "awake and conscious," Patti said.

World Wide Travel of Greater New York, the cause of the bus, said it in a evidence that the consort was "heartbroken" and cooperating with investigators.

"We are a family-owned consort and realize words cannot begin to express our rue to the families of those who forfeited their lives or were scraped in this sad accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with them," it said.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records traded World Wide Travel as having at least digit another accidents in which grouping were scraped in the past 24 months. The authority flagged the consort for doable extra scrutiny cod to violations involving utility tedium regulations.

The charabanc was digit of scores that movement regular between Chinatown, in Manhattan, and the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in south Connecticut.

Mohegan Sun, in Uncasville, Conn., has estimated a fifth of its business comes from Asian outlay and caters to Chinese-American gamblers. Its website has a Chinese-language country substance recreation and charabanc promotions.

___

Hays reported from New royalty City. Associated Press Writers king tenor and Cristian Salazar also contributed to this report from New royalty City.

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