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HARRISBURG — A passenger bus carrying up to 50 people crashed and hit another vehicle on a Pennsylvania interstate, killing three bus passengers, state police said.
The wreck happened during heavy rain around 11:50 p.m. Sunday on southbound Interstate 81 just north of Harrisburg, state police said.
The bus drove off the roadway, struck an embankment and rolled onto its right side before hitting the back of a car that was stopped in the right lane of traffic, according to a crash report.
The three passengers were declared dead at the scene, the police report said, and others suffered injuries that ranged from minor to severe.
Matthew Oshiafi, a passenger on the bus, told Pennlive that he remembered a terrible screeching and shuddering before it crashed and flipped on its side. He said he was sitting in the last row of the bus that was covering a normal route between New York and Ohio.
Oshiafi, 39, a New York City resident who was headed to Cincinnati to visit family, said the crash threw people from their seats and left some piled on top of others. He heard people screaming and saw people around him who were severely injured or unconscious.
Oshiafi said he saw a couple in a nearby seat with a baby, and noticed the woman appeared to be unconscious and the man was trying to help her. The man handed the baby to Oshiafi, who said he passed the baby through the broken bus windshield to emergency responders.
“I’m shaking,” he told the newspaper on Monday, about ten hours after the crash. “I know people have died.”
One adult from the bus was critically injured, while one adult and one child were listed in serious condition at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, spokesperson Barbara Schindo said. In total, 28 patients were taken to that hospital. Patients ranged in age from 1 to 69, including five under the age of 18.
More patients may have been taken to another hospital, Medical Center spokesperson Scott Gilbert said.
A Dauphin County spokesperson said information about the people who died was not immediately available through the coroner’s office.
“This is considered a mass casualty incident,” Trooper Megan Frazer said. “We do have eight ambulances that assisted with us, as well as lifeline (emergency response), just because of how many people were involved and the amount of injuries.”
The identities of the owner and driver of the bus have not been released. Frazer said Monday morning that more details about the wreck might not be released until Tuesday.
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