WESTPORT, N.Y. – A Greyhound bus traveling from New York City to Montreal crashed through a guard rail and landed upside down in an embankment Monday, killing at least five people and injuring many others, officials said.
The bus departed New York at 1 p.m. and made stops in Albany and Saratoga Springs before the crash, said Greyhound spokeswoman Anna Folmnsbee. There were 52 passengers and one driver onboard, she said.
Ray Thatcher, Director of Emergency Services for Essex County, said at least five people were dead. By 1 a.m. Tuesday firefighters had not yet reached the body of the driver, which was still stuck deep inside the wreckage.
It was unlikely that more bodies remained inside, but rescue workers continued to pick through the wreckage of the crushed bus, he said.
"We won't know until we get the bus turned over," he said.
Mike Hildebran, a spokesman for Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Medical Center in Plattsburgh, said more than 30 people had been treated there and several more were en route. The patients were of all ages, including a few children, and had injuries including cuts, bruises and broken bones.
The bus was traveling north on Interstate 87 at about 6:45 p.m. when it overturned near Elizabethtown, went down a small embankment and stopped wedged between the median.
The highway remained closed early Tuesday near the crash site. Westport is 110 miles north of Albany.
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