SEATTLE — Two charter buses crashed today on an icy Seattle street and pushed through a guardrail next to Interstate 5, leaving one bus’ front wheels dangling 20 feet above the freeway.
Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick says 11 young adults were taken to Harborview Medical Center with minor injuries from debris and flying glass. Another two, also with minor injuries, did not want to go to the hospital.
Fitzpatrick says there was no danger of either bus falling from the high bulkhead next to the freeway. She said all of the approximately 80 passengers were able to get off the buses before emergency vehicles arrived.
The state Department of Transportation closed two freeway lanes below.
One of the buses, which had only a front corner jutting past the guardrail, was pulled back from the edge by a tow truck by about 5 p.m. — 4 1⁄2 hours after the crash.
The exact cause of the accident was not immediately known, but Seattle Police said the winter weather and icy streets were at least a contributing factor.
The bus drivers took an alternative route when they exited I-5, because they believed Thomas Street would be a better choice than Denny Way, said Seattle Police Department spokeswoman Renee Witt.
They were unaware of icy conditions on the snow-covered cobblestones of Thomas Street, but as soon as the first bus turned onto Thomas, it slid all the way down the hill, through the intersection with Melrose Street and into the guardrail above the freeway, Witt said.
The bus stopped with two wheels hanging over the freeway. The second bus followed the first, sliding down the hill and into the guardrail to the side of the first bus.
Jesse Till, 20, of Tacoma, was on one of the buses and said he sensed that something was wrong as it started down the hill above the freeway. Till told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he and a friend were sitting in the first row, which was left hanging in midair.
“I was watching the cars drive below us,” Till said, adding that he was thinking, “I’m going to die.”
Passenger Reco Collins, 16, told the newspaper that one bus crashed into the railing and was then struck by the second bus, pushing it farther over the side.
“We were going down the hill and the hill was very icy and the driver tried to turn and we ran into the other bus and it knocked it … into the guardrails and windows in our bus just shattered,” passenger Nicole Maxie told KING-TV.
“Everybody was just screaming, crying. Everybody had to climb out the emergency windows,” Maxie said.
Maxie said the buses were carrying students with the Columbia Basin Job Corps home from Moses Lake for Christmas break.
The buses were part of a three-bus caravan bound for downtown Seattle’s Greyhound bus station. The third bus was not involved in the accident.
The buses were chartered from Northwestern Trailways, a man who answered the phone at the company told The Associated Press.
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