Buses with Job Corps students crash in Seattle

SEATTLE — Students from Columbia Basin Job Corps in Moses Lake safely escaped two buses after they crashed in Seattle, one going through a guardrail and dangling 20 feet above Interstate 5.

Seattle Fire Department spokesperson Helen Fitzpatrick said 11 passengers were transported to Harborview Medical Center for minor injuries, such as cuts, bruises, back pain and bloody noses, she said.

A total of 13 passengers were injured, but two declined medical treatment, Fitzpatrick said.

She was unsure whether the bus drivers were injured.

Job Corps Center Director Peggy Hendren said three buses were transporting students to a Seattle bus station for winter break.

The information she received indicates there were no serious injuries, Hendren said.

“Our main concern is their safety and their welfare, and we’re thankful (because) this definitely could have been a lot worse,” she said.

Hendren said she was told two buses were headed down a hill covered in ice, and one bus collided with the other. She said it was good the third bus did not follow the other two down the hill.

New buses transported the students to the Seattle bus station, according to information she received.

The biggest concern of students now is getting their luggage, Hendren said.

She was told students must contact the Seattle Police Department to find out when they can pick their luggage up.

Columbia Basin Job Corps serves youth from 16 to 24 years old. The students were traveling home for the holidays.

Fitzpatrick told the Associated Press there was no danger of either bus falling from the high bulkhead next to the freeway.

The bus had approximately 75 passengers, who were off the bus by the time emergency vehicles arrived.

Fitzpatrick said the report initially came through as a “heavy rescue, but that turned out not to be the case.”

Seattle police handled traffic control and investigation of the incident, she said. The state Department of Transportation responded as well.

A phone call to the Seattle Police Department was not returned.

Jesse Till, 20, of Tacoma, was on one of the buses and said he sensed that something was wrong as it started down the hill above the freeway. Till told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper that he and a friend were sitting in the first row, which was left hanging in midair.

“I was watching the cars drive below us,” Till said, adding that he was thinking, “I’m going to die.”

Passenger Reco Collins, 16, told the newspaper that one bus crashed into the railing and was then struck by the second bus, pushing it farther over the side.

“We were going down the hill and the hill was very icy and the driver tried to turn and we ran into the other bus and it knocked it … into the guardrails and windows in our bus just shattered,” passenger Nicole Maxie told KING-TV.

“Everybody was just screaming, crying. Everybody had to climb out the emergency windows,” Maxie said.

Maxie said the buses were carrying students with the Columbia Basin Job Corps home from Moses Lake for Christmas break.

Hendren said the students return from winter break Jan. 4.

The buses were chartered from Northwestern Trailways, a man who answered the phone at the company told The Associated Press.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story