The California Highway Patrol today said six people died and at least 34 were injured when a Greyhound bus crashed with two other vehicles on a highway in Fresno, California. Four of the injured are in critical condition. Highway patrol spokesman Officer Kirk Arnold added that the accident occurred about 2:15 a.m. local time on northbound California Highway.
According to Arnold, the bus hit an overturned SUV that was in the highway's fast lane and then struck a second vehicle. After hitting the second vehicle, the bus traveled down an embankment and then slammed into a eucalyptus tree.
"We're still trying to piece everything together," he told reporters. It is believed that one of the people who died was a person in the overturned SUV. The bus was going from Los Angeles to Sacramento. Greyhound spokesman Timothy Stokes said that 35 people were on board the bus. Greyhound representatives had reached the scene of the accident. The cause of the crash was still unknown. Stokes added that his company has sent relief buses to the scene to pick up injured passengers.
Arlen Snider, who was in the bus, said he was asleep in the middle section of the bus when the crash occurred. "I woke up on the floor of the bus and started helping people off the bus," said Snider, who escaped uninjured. Four women and two men, including the driver are among the six dead, said CHP Officer Kirk Arnold. "I had just woke up and I heard a boom once, and a boom again and the next thing I know we were down this embankment," Linda Gee, a passenger on the bus, told KMPH-TV in Fresno.
