Texas bus crash kills 13

By LINDA STEWART BALL Associated Press Writer
Published: August 8, 2008

SHERMAN, Texas (AP) — A charter bus ran off a highway overpass north of Dallas and crashed onto its side on a roadway below, killing at least 13 and sending at least 24 people to hospitals.

The bus carrying 55 people to Missouri from Houston may have blown a tire, said Sherman police Lt. Robert Fair. Police say 12 people died at the scene. Another died at a Dallas hospital, a Parkland Memorial Hospital spokesman told The Associated Press. They were members of a Vietnamese church on a pilgrimage, KHOU-TV reported.

The bus came to a rest on its right side in the northbound lane of an access road below U.S. 75 around 12:45 a.m. Friday. Scores of injured were rushed to Sherman and Dallas hospitals via helicopter ambulances.

A spokeswoman at Wilson N. Jones Medical Center in Sherman said it was treating 15 patients. Five of those were critical condition and the conditions of the others were not immediately available. One person first brought to the Sherman hospital was transferred to Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital. That person’s condition was not immediately known.

The conditions of two women who were taken to Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas were being evaluated, a hospital spokeswoman said. Two people — a male and female — were in critical condition at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The Parkland spokesman said three men and one woman from the crash were in critical condition there, and another woman had died.

Northbound traffic on the highway was shut down as ambulances and helicopters used the roadway and median to ferry the injured to hospitals. KHOU-TV quoted a Galveston/Houston archdiocese church official as saying many of those on the bus were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church of Houston and were on their way to a religious festival honoring the Virgin Mary in Carthage, Mo. At least four translators were brought to the scene, the Herald Democrat of Sherman reported.

The accident happened less than a mile from the spot where a trucker crossed the median and killed 10 people five years ago. Sherman is about 65 miles north of Dallas.
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Associated Press writers Regina L. Burns and Jamie Stengle contributed to this report.