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Team Coverage A ski trip to Colorado ended tragically for a group from Phoenix when their bus crashed on a rural state road in southeast Utah's San Juan County. Nine people were killed, and at least 30 others are hurt, taken to surrounding state hospitals.
"First responders tell me it was complete chaos. There were people laying everywhere," explained Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Todd Peterson.
UHP troopers are trying to determine what caused the driver to veer off the rain-slicked State Road 163 about five miles north of Mexican Hat and down a 40-foot embankment. "It went off far enough that the tires caught on the embankment, the driver wasn't able to correct it and get it back on the roadway, and that caused it to roll over and down the embankment," Peterson said.
Authorities were questioning why the tour bus driver, who suffered minor injuries, had chosen the route.
"It's a downhill stretch. You can easily get your speeds too high," said Jim Hook, fire chief in nearby Bluff. "If I'm driving from Telluride to Phoenix at night with a bunch of people, I wouldn't go through Monument Valley."
The roof of the Arrow Stage Lines bus was ripped off as it rolled, ejecting passengers into the snow. UHP reports three died on impact, four others died while being treated on the scene or transported to hospitals, and two more died--one late this afternoon--while being treated at hospitals.
Monday night the Utah Highway Patrol released the names of the victims who died in the crash. They are all from Arizona: Jeffrey Rivera, 32, Gilbert; Joseph Debolske, 18, Scottsdale; Marc Rasmussen, 18, Glendale; James J. Baumer, 41, Phoenix; Erica Sheffey, 16, Glendale; Reese Washington, 12 (no hometown), Arizona; Pam Humphreys, 67, Tucson; Carolyn Bowden, in her 60s, Phoenix; and Jasmine Bowden, 16, of Glendale.
The driver of the vehicle, Lotan Welland, 71, of Gladwin, Michigan, suffered injuries but survived. Other surviving passengers were taken to hospitals in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Of those crash victims, 10 are being treated at the San Juan County Hospital in Monticello. Located 80 miles from the crash site, this was the closest hospital. Twenty-four people were brought there last night, and staff members say some patients were as young as 10 years old. Two more people were brought to the hospital this morning, and as of this afternoon, 10 people are still there.
Many of the patients treated in San Juan County had serious injuries, including head injuries and broken bones. The hospital is small and has only 25 beds. The number of patients taken there last night was the most they've ever seen.
When they got the call that the victims would be coming here, the hospital brought in eight times the number of staff to help out. "They had it organized so when the EMS people brought the patients in, there was doctors and nursing staff assigned to each of the patients so they would take them away as an ambulance came in. But we filled every nook and cranny and bed that we could find last night," hospital CEO Craig Preston said.
Three of those injured were transported to Salt Lake. Two are being treated at University Hospital, one of which is a 41-year-old woman who is in very critical condition. The third injured passenger is being treated at Intermountain Medical Center.
All other patients are being treated at hospitals in four states. One patient remains in stable condition at the Allen Memorial Hospital in Moab, and St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., is currently treating eight victims. San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, N.M., is treating three of the surviving passengers, and Flagstaff Medical Center in Arizona received two of the crash victims.
"When you look at the bus and how mangled it is, you're amazed that people actually walked away from it. Some people didn't really even have to be hospitalized--there were very few of them, but the majority of people survived the crash," Peterson said.
The injured include 10 high school and middle school students from the Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona. Two more from that school district were killed, as well, and the district says it has counselors on hand to meet with students and faculty.
An Arrow Stage executive, Bruce Neuharth, was traveling to the crash site Monday from Omaha, Neb., headquarters. The company released a statement earlier today that says it is cooperating with the authorities investigating this accident and defers any comment about possible causes pending the outcome of that investigation. The president of Corporate Transportation N Tours wrote the motor coach was new and in perfect working order. UHP says its investigation is ongoing.
Arrow Stage has had seven bus crashes in the past two years, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database. Four of those accidents involved injuries. No other details were available from the online database.
(The Associated Press contributed to this article. Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
