Bus Accident Lawyer

Well known country singer Sammy Kershaw and his band are shaken but uninjured after their tour bus was struck by another vehicle in Nocona, Texas on Friday night.

The 54 year old country crooner told reporters that no one was injured in the accident, but said that both he and the nine members of his band were traumatised and shaken following the incident. The accident occurred at around 11.30 pm when another vehicle hit into the side of the tour bus at high speed, causing major damage to the bus.

The female driver of the car that smashed into the side of Kershaw’s bus, yet to be identified, was transported to a nearby hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries. In a statement, Kershaw said that according to his sources, the woman had fractured her ankle in a few places and sustained facial injuries from her air bag. She is recovering well and is expected to be released from hospital soon.

It is unclear why the female driver collided with the bus, and officials are investigating the cause of the accident. Kershaw and his band have decided not to press charges against the woman.

Despite the accident, Kershaw will go ahead with his scheduled tour dates. Although their tour bus is out of action due to the damage caused in the accident, alternative transportation arrangements have been made for the remainder of the tour. Kershaw is next appearing in Cambridge, Maryland on Friday the 9^th of November.

Kershaw said that he believes they had a guardian angel travelling with them on the bus, and it could have turned out far worse for all involved. ‘Buses and cars can be replaced but people can’t’, he said.

The multi-platinum award winning country singer became famous in the early 1990s following a number of memorable country hits, such as ‘She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful’, ‘Feelin’ Good Train’ and ‘Cadillac Style’. He has sold over 5 million albums. Kershaw took the opportunity of his press conference to urge American citizens to go out and vote. He said that he had already voted but didn’t specify which candidate he voted for.

Kershaw’s holiday album, ‘A Sammy Klaus Christmas’ was released on October 22^nd via his label, Big Hit Records. The holiday album contains Kershaw’s rendition of some classic Christmas carols, including a unique Cajun version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’, paying tribute to his Louisiana upbringing.

Four Belgian tourists have been killed and a further six seriously injured after their tour bus crashed in Jordan on Saturday.

According to the Belgian foreign ministry, three women and one man, all Belgian citizens, were killed instantly in the accident and a further six Belgian nationals were seriously injured. The status of the remaining eight passengers who were also travelling on the bus is not immediately known, but no other passengers were admitted to hospital. The majority of the passengers on the tour bus were from Belgium, although there were also a number of people hailing from Luxembourg, according to the foreign ministry.

The accident occurred at around 6pm on Saturday evening, in the city of Karak in West Jordan. The tourist bus was carrying passengers from the historical city of Petra to the country’s capital of Amman, said a spokesperson for Thomas Cook Belgium, the tour agency that organised the tour and was chartering the bus.

According to initial eye witness reports, the tour bus collided with a car that appeared to be driving in the wrong lane. The spokesperson for Thomas Cook Belgium claimed that the bus driver could not be held accountable for the accident if eye witness reports turn out to be correct. However, a thorough investigation will be conducted into the accident, say Jordan police officials.

Jordan police officials report in a press release that 15 passengers were in fact injured, with the police report stating that they were Belgian and French citizens. As well as the tourists, the driver of the bus and a local tour guide were also injured in the incident. The tourists will be flying home to Belgium on a special flight organised by the Belgian embassy in Amman. According to the Belgian Foreign Minister, Didier Reynders, the embassy and Jordanian authorities are offering support to the victims and their families to ensure that they get home safely.

The Prime Minister of Belgium, Elio Di Rupo, extended his condolences  to the victims of the accident as well as the families of the deceased on Twitter, saying ‘My thoughts are with the victims of this bus accident in Jordan and their families’ on Saturday.

A spokesperson for the Jordan police department, Mohamad Khatib, said that the survivors of the accident all had only minor injuries and were transported to local hospitals for treatment. According to a spokesperson for the local hospital, all of the injured have since been discharged.

Two pre-school children have been killed with a number of others injured in a bus accident in the Carroll County school district when their bus overturned and hit into a tree, say officials from the Kentucky State Police Department.

The children were on their way home from a Head Start pre school program when the tragic accident occurred. “It’s the worst thing you can imagine”, said Brad Arterburn, a spokesperson for the Kentucky State Police Department. The bus was carrying nine children from the Head Start program,  as well as two adults. A number of the children were stuck inside the wreckage of the overturned bus before rescue workers were able to free them.

The bus overturned at around 4.32pm while driving on Boone Road and hit into a tree. According to the sheriff’s department, another vehicle was involved in the incident but no further details are known. State police, however, say that there was no other vehicle at the scene when they arrived.

Two children were declared dead on the scene by emergency medical personnel. A further four children were injured, and transported by helicopter to local hospitals, while three other children were released home with their parents. All of the injured children were under the age of five years, and are currently being treated at Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville. According to Cis Gruebbel, chief nursing officer at Kosair, the children suffered serious injuries including head injuries and fractures. However Gruebbel did not say whether the children’s injuries were life-threatening.

Although Hurricane Sandy has been causing high winds in the area, police say that bad weather conditions were unlikely to have played a role in the accident, as the roads were dry and it was not raining at the time of the incident.

Gruebbel further elaborated that the injured children were first sent to Carrol County Memorial Hospital where they were stabilised and evaluated before the most seriously injured were transferred to Kosair for further specialist management. The children were not able to be taken to hospital in Cincinnati by air due to high wind speeds from Hurrican Sandy.

The driver of the bus was not injured in the accident, but was transported to Carroll County Memorial Hospital for a precautionary examination. The driver also underwent a routine drug test and tested for alcohol, said state police officials. The second adult on the bus suffered minor injuries and was airlifted to hospital. Her condition currently is unclear.

State police are investigating the incident.

There was no second vehicle involved in Monday’s Carroll County school bus accident that left two pre school children dead and seven others injured, say the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department.

The accident, which involved a bus carrying nine pre school children from a Head Start school preparatory program as well as two adults, veered off the road and hit a tree on Barnes Road near Carrollton on Monday afternoon. Two 3 year old children from Sanders, Kentucky, were declared dead at the scene. The children’s names have now been released as Ryder Deitz and Caroline Tuttle.

A further seven children, all under the age of five, as well as a bus driver and an adult attendant, were injured and transported to local hospitals in Louisville and Lexington.

Following the accident on Monday, the sheriff’s department reported that a second vehicle may have been involved, but revealed no further vehicles. When the Kentucky State Police Department arrived on the scene, however, there was no second vehicle present. However Brad Aterburn, spokesperson for the Kentucky State Police, said the incident was still under investigation and he was not able to confirm or deny the involvement of another vehicle.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department confirmed that the school bus was the only vehicle involved in the accident.

State police are currently working with the sheriff’s department to recreate the accident scene, said Aterburn. The final results of the investigation may take weeks to be released.

Six of the accident victims, all between the ages of 3 and 5, were transported to Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville on Monday night where they have been receiving treatment for their injuries. Four children have since been discharged from hospital. One child, a 3 year old boy, has been moved from the pediatric intensive care unit to a high care ward and his condition is continuing to improve, says Kosair Children’s Hospital spokesman Steve Menaugh.

A four year old girl who is currently in a stable condition remains in the pediatric intensive care unit, said Menaugh.

An adult bus attendant remains in a serious condition at the University of Kentucky Medical Centre, said University of Kentucky spokesperson Jay Blanton.

A visitation for Caroline Tuttle will be held on Thursday from 5 to 9pm at the Family Worship Centre in Carrollton. A memorial service will be held at the worship centre on Friday at 2pm. A visitation for Ryder Deitz will be held on Friday evening at the Family Worship Centre, with his funeral on Sunday at 11am.

The Abilene Christian University (ACU) community came together to share memories and tears on November 3^rd, the one year anniversary of the tragic ACU bus accident that killed sophomore student Anabel Reid and injured 13 others.

On that fateful day last year, 16 Abilene Christian University students and staff members were travelling southbound on a bus for a mission trip in Medina, a small town situated in Hill County. The driver of the bus was Michael Nicodemus, an assistant professor of environmental science. Although the exact cause of the accident is still unknown, Nicodemus has admitted that he might have fallen asleep at the wheel, causing the bus to veer off the road.

The accident occurred at around 3.20pm between the towns of Ballinger and Paint Rock, about a third of the way into the group’s 220 mile journey. Nicodemus said the bus started to slide after it hit the gravel on the side of the highway. He attempted to correct the bus but was not able to, and the bus hit into a culvert and rolled several times before coming to a stop on its wheels.

The sides and roof of the beef were cleaved off the vehicle, and 12 of the 16 passengers had been thrown out of the bus. 13 injured passengers were transported to local hospitals for treatment. One of the passengers, a faculty member, sustained serious injuries that caused her to be hospitalised for over two months.

Anabel Reid, a 19 year old environmental science major, was thrown from the vehicle. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Reid’s family did not press charges against Nicodemus, who walked away from the accident unscathed. However two faculty members on the bus filed a lawsuit in February against the manufacturer of the bus, claiming that the bus was not safe and contributed to the accident. The lawsuit it currently still pending.

The accident had devastating effects on the entire Abilene University community, particularly the environmental sciences department who had organised the trip. Three professors from the department and a number of environmental sciences majors were on the bus. The chairman of the department, Dr. Ed Brokaw, says that they received support and prayers from the entire university community and the rest of Abilene and that students have played a major role in supporting each other through this event.

A chapel service on the anniversary of the accident remembered Anabel Reid, with a tree planted in her memory after the service.

One woman has been killed and 10 others have been injured, one critically so, when a bus collided with a Chevrolet sedan on the I-95 in Newark.

According to police official Cpl John Day, the accident occurred at 5.36 pm on Wednesday afternoon. A Chevrolet Monte Carlo which was travelling southbound in the right lane suddenly veered left as it approached St.Rt. 896, and travelled across traffic over several lanes of the I-95 southbound. As the vehicle entered the left lane, it collided with a BoltBus. The collision sent the Chevrolet spinning onto the median where it rolled multiple times before coming to rest on its wheels on the side of the highway.

The bus, which was not badly damaged in the accident, pulled over the to the side of highway and stopped. The driver of the Chevrolet, a middle aged woman who is yet to be identified, was pronounced dead on the scene by emergency rescue officials. A 41 year old man who was a passenger in the Chevrolet was transferred to Christiana Hospital by state police helicopter, where he remains in a stable condition. The man’s identity is known, but his next of kin have yet to be notified and therefore police are withholding his name.

Two passengers in the bus were transported to the hospital and treated for minor injuries. They have both been discharged. According to Day, a further seven passengers on the bus sustained minor injuries but were treated on the scene and did not require admission to hospital.

The driver of the BoltBus, which was transporting 32 passengers from New York to Washington, DC at the time of the incident, was identified as 47 year old Mamadou Badiane from Maryland. Badiane has been working for BoltBus since April 2010 and has a good safety record, says BoltBus spokeswoman Maureen Richmond. According to Richmond, the bus company will be working with police to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.

A replacement bus was sent by BoltBus to pick up the uninjured passengers and continue their journey to Washington after their injuries were treated and they were questioned by police at the scene.

A number of lanes on both the northbound and southbound I-95 lanes were closed and remained shut until close to 10pm on Wednesday evening for workers to investigate the scene and clear the debris. The local police department as well as the Collision Reconstruction Unit are currently investigating the incident further.

Source: http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/10/25/1-dead-after-car-and-boltbus-crash-on-i-95/

A woman and a 10 year old girl have been injured after a LA County Metro bus collided with a truck and a car in Hollywood on Tuesday.

The accident occurred at around 8am on Tuesday morning, when a semi-truck set off a chain reaction pile up that lead to the two injuries. The semi-truck, later described as a dump truck, was parked on the side of the road in the 7600 block of West Hollywood Boulevard, when it suddenly rolled into the highway in the path of incoming traffic. The truck was unoccupied at the time, and it is thought that the driver neglected to put on his parking brake.

The semi-truck collided with an LA County Metro passenger bus that was heading Westbound along the highway. Due to the force of the collision, the bus was knocked off course and in turn crashed into a silver BMW sedan, which was occupied by a woman and her ten year old daughter. There were approximately 27 passengers on the bus at the time of the incident, none of whom were injured. A number of passengers were however transported to a local hospital to be examined for injuries, but were later discharged.

According to Brian Humphrey, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman, eye witnesses report that the semi-truck T-boned the bus sending in into the eastbound lane.

The woman driver of the BMW was trapped inside the wreckage of her vehicle, and had to be extricated by emergency rescue personnel. Once she was freed, she was transported to a local hospital where she remains in a serious condition. The ten year old girl was admitted to a Children’s Hospital and is currently in a stable condition, according to Metropolitan Transport Authority spokesman Marc Littman.

Hollywood Boulevard was closed between Curson and Fairfax avenues for some hours after the accident while the wreckage was cleared from the scene and police began an investigation into the incident.

According to Metropolitan Transportation Authority personnel, a thorough investigation will be conducted into the accident to determine the cause of the incident and liability for the injuries and damage to property that resulted. It is as yet unknown who was responsible for the unoccupied dump truck, and further enquiries will be made in this regard. The driver of the dump truck may be found liable for the injuries incurred if negligence was found to be the cause of the incident.

A bus driver has been killed and six passengers seriously injured after a tour bus returning from the Grand Canyon was involved in an accident. The tour bus was conducting a routine tour of Arizona and Nevada, carrying passengers from the hustle, lights and entertainment of Las Vegas to admire the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon, passing the Hoover Dam on the way.

The Silver State Trailways bus was carrying approximately 50 passengers on this standard tourist route on Friday when disaster struck. As the bus was returning from the Grand Canyon late on Friday evening, the bus driver appeared to suffer from a medical emergency or fall asleep and lost control of the bus, according to investigators.

The bus was travelling northbound on  Highway 93, and the accident occurred just as the bus was approaching the Nevada state boundary. According to a statement released by the Arizona Highway Patrol, initial reports suggest that the driver experienced some kind of medical event such as a stroke or heart attack, losing consciousness. As a result, the bus veered suddenly off the road, hitting through a ravine and across bumpy terrain for more than 700 feet before skidding to a stop. Although the front portion of the bus was damaged, the vehicle remained on all four wheels and did not overturn. There were no other vehicles involved in the incident.

According to the bus company that was operating the bus, Silver State Trailways, the bus driver who is yet to be publicly identified, may have suffered from a heart attack. The driver was found to be dead on the scene, most likely due to a medical cause rather than trauma suffered in the accident. 48 passengers, the majority of which were tourists from Europe and Asia, were injured. Most passengers had only minor injuries and were treated on the scene and then released. However, six people were seriously injured and were airlifted to Las Vegas where they are currently being treated at the University Medical Center.

According to the Medical Center’s spokesperson, Danita Cohen, the injured passengers are recovering from non-life threatening injuries and are expected to be discharged from hospital soon.

President of Silver State Trailways, Mr. Tony Fiorini, did not reveal the name or the age of the bus driver that was killed. It is not known whether the driver had a previous medical condition. An autopsy will be carried out on the driver’s body later this week to determine the cause of his death.

A motorcyclist was killed after being hit by a bus belonging to Nova Auto Transport in Quezon City in the Phillipines on Wednesday.

The motorcyclist, who is yet to be identified, was riding the motorcycle with another man along Belfast Avenue to Quezon City, Manila when a bus collided with the motorcycle. The bus driver at the time has been identified as Frank Verona, a Philippine citizen.

Emergency rescue personnel arrived rapidly to the scene, and both motorcyclists were transported immediately to East Avenue Medical Center. One of the men died of his injuries at approximately 4am, while the other remains in a critical condition at the Medical Center.

According to the bus driver, the motorcyclist was riding on the wrong side of the road when the collision occurred. However, according to eye witness reports from Olivia Gultiano, another motorcyclist who was driving behind the pair involved in the collision, the bus driver appeared to be racing against another bus and collided with the motorcycle at high speed.

Verano has been arrested and is currently in the custody of the Quezon City Police District. He is expected to be charged with reckless driving, impudence and culpable homicide.

This latest accident occurs just 24 hours after another Nova bus was involved in a serious collision with a CEM Transport bus on Tuesday, which injured 27 passengers and the bus driver. Nova Transportation has the worst accident record of any transportation company in the Phillipines, with this latest accident marking the 17^th accident for Nova since 2009.

Following the latest two incidents, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has suspended all Nova Auto Transport vehicles with immediate effect. The initial suspension will be for a period of 30 days, in which time the Land Transportation Office will be conducting road-worthiness test into all 76 of the company’s buses, as well as further investigations into the cause of their high accident record. Nova’s drivers will also all be subjected to drug tests, and will be instructed to attend advanced driving lessons.

On Tuesday, the LTFRB has issues a suspension of ten buses owned by Nova after the collision between a Nova bus and CEM Transit bus. However, this suspension has now been extended to cover Nova’s entire fleet. Following the 30 day suspension, the LTFRB will make a decision whether to allow Nova to continue operations, said LTFRB Chairman, James Jacob.

Seventeen people have been killed and 23 others injured when a passenger bus was involved in a head on collision with a truck in the Madhya Pradesh region of Northern India.

The incident occurred approximately 20kms from the city of Chhatarpur, near Naugaon Navodaya Vidyalaya, at around 7am on Tuesday morning. According to police officials, the bus was en route from Harpalpur to Chhatarpur when it collided head on with a truck bound for Naugaon. The truck was loaded with cement.

Emergency medical services and rescue personnel, including the Chhattarpur Collector Rajesh Bahugun and other police officials responded rapidly to the accident. Rescuers worked tirelessly for hours to remove the bodies of the deceased and rescue survivors of the incident from the wreckage of the bus.

12 of the passengers on the bus died instantly, while a further four died of their injuries while being transported to hospital. Since this morning, one other passenger has died, bringing the total death toll to 17. 13 of the surviving passengers who were injured were admitted to the Chhatarpur district hospital, while eight remain in a serious condition. The remainder of the injured passengers were transported to the Nougaon civil hospital, where they are completing treatment for non-life threatening injuries.

Collector Rajesh Bahugan has announced that the district will be offering compensation of one lakh Rupees each to the families of the deceased, and 10 000 rupees each to the injured passengers.

In addition, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has announced further compensation of 50 000 rupees to be given to each of the seriously injured passengers to assist with medical expenses. Minister Chouhan has expressed grief and regret over the incident, and has extended the district’s condolences to the family members of those who died in the accident.

Police officials have released a list of names of the bodies with known identities. Two of the deceased are yet to be identified, and the Madhya Pradesh police encourage those looking for news of family members to contact them directly.

Police and government officials will be conducting a thorough investigation into the accident. It is not yet clear who was at fault in causing the collision, and police will be interviewing the surviving passengers once they have recovered from their injuries to establish whether the bus driver, who passed away in the incident, was to blame.

Indian roads have some of the highest death tolls for road traffic accidents in the world.