Monday, March 10, 2003 | 11:04 a.m.
A lack of seat belts is one reason that so many passengers suffered so many injuries in Sunday's tour bus crash near Baker, Calif., a California Highway Patrol spokesman said today.
"Seat belts are not required equipment on tour buses in California," said Officer Adam Cortinas, CHP spokesman for the Barstow office, which responded to the 3:20 p.m. crash on southbound Interstate 15, about 80 miles southwest of Las Vegas.
Seat belts are not required on tour buses in Nevada either, authorities said.
Officials said 52 people were injured Sunday afternoon when one bus hit another from behind on southbound Interstate 15. The crash closed the highway for hours as emergency crews from Clark County and California converged to the area between Baker and the state line.
Many of the injuries sustained by bus passengers occurred when the passengers tumbled forward in the buses during the crash. No one was killed in the chain-reaction, rear-ending collision, but traffic in the southbound lanes was backed up for 20 miles, the CHP said.
Seat belts "certainly could have helped by keeping passengers in position and not allowing them to slip forward," Cortinas said.
It will take two to three weeks to investigate the crash, Cortinas said.
A list of the names of the injured was not released this morning.
Cortinas said he has seen seat belts on some buses, but there is "no rhyme or reason" why some buses have them and some do not, other than they are optional. The bus driver is the only one required to wear a seat belt, he said.
After Sunday's crash, 52 passengers were transported to Nevada and California hospitals after Sunday's collision, 46 of them with moderate injuries, San Bernardino Fire Department dispatch supervisor Sue Hood said.
Initially, University Medical Center had several passengers who were in critical condition. But as of this morning, only two of them were still critical, UMC spokeswoman Cheryl Persinger said. They are two women, ages 48 and 60, Persinger said.
A 70-year-old man and 58-year-old woman were in serious condition, Persinger said. Two women were treated and released and four other women remained hospitalized this morning in fair condition.
They were all injured when a tour bus from the Gold & Silver bus company struck the rear of a Hebaragi & Lemi tour.
Authorities said Sunday that Hebaragi & Lemi is based in Los Angeles, but they did not know where the Gold & Silver bus company is based. No information about the company was available.
Troopers at the scene estimated that the buses were traveling about 55 mph when the accident occurred. The posted speed limit in the area, north of Baker, is 70 mph. But vehicles traveling too fast for the conditions on that stretch of the road may still have contributed to the accident, Cortinas said.
Construction on I-15 in the area might have been a factor, said Capt. Tom Wetterman, San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman.
"On weekends we come out here as much as four to six times a day," Wetterman said. Narrow lanes and dividers in the area have created a "traffic nightmare," he said.
It was difficult for emergency crews to reach the bus accident because of several unrelated accidents, Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach said.
A five-car accident north of the bus crash site and three other accidents south of the scene slowed rescue personnel trying to reach the buses, Leinbach said.
"It was a very bad traffic afternoon in that part of California," Leinbach said. The Nevada Highway Patrol diverted southbound traffic on I-15 at Primm for most of Sunday evening, Leinbach said.
About 100 rescuers responded to the accident, including Clark County emergency vehicles, medical helicopters from Las Vegas and Southern California, and a Blackhawk helicopter from Fort Irwin, Calif.
Clark County emergency services sent 25 rescuers, Leinbach said. Two heavy rescue trucks, two rescue units, two engines and an emergency supervisor went to the crash site from Las Vegas. Two volunteer firefighters from Goodsprings and one from Searchlight also responded.
The Hebaragi & Lemi passengers left Las Vegas at 1 p.m. Sunday to return to Los Angeles after spending the night in Las Vegas, said Eric Song, general manager of the bus company.
Song said all of the passengers on the Hebaragi & Lemi bus were from Southern California.
Wetterman said the most critically injured passenger in the crash was a woman riding in the front seat of the Gold & Silver bus.
Passenger Dave Shield, 58, of Los Angeles was sitting toward the back of the Gold & Silver bus.
"Everybody saw it coming," said Shield, who bruised his right leg in the accident. "People were screaming. I braced myself and pressed against the seat.
"The seats came loose in that bus and people became trapped inside."
When addressing the seat belt question, Cortinas noted that school buses traditionally do not have seat belts because of concerns that children would panic and not be able to get out of the restraints to escape from a bus after a collision.
One of the passengers on the Gold & Silver bus Sunday night, 50-year-old Artis Meadow of Los Angeles, said he had to kick out a window out to escape after the crash.
"I wanted to break in my steel-toed motorcycle boots, so I put them on for the first time today," Meadow said.
With one kick, Meadow removed a window then jumped. He said he smelled smoke from his seat before making the leap from the window. He suffered cuts on the hand, arm and knee.
The exit at the front of the bus was jammed and people could not get out right away, Meadow said. He assisted other people scrambling off the bus.
Vincent Sowells, a 77-year-old woman on the Gold & Silver bus, said she jumped out of a window on the left side of bus after a man broke the glass.
A motorist who had been driving northbound on I-15 stopped to help, and caught Sowells as she dropped about seven feet from the bus window.
Hung Truong, 27, of Northridge, Calif., described a similar scene. Truong was a passenger on the Hebaragi & Lemi bus.
"The door (on the Gold & Silver bus) was jammed and people went out the emergency windows," Truong said. "People were trying to pull the door off the back bus. The driver was stuck in the back bus a long time."
Several Las Vegas-area hospitals treated victims from the crash.
Sunrise Hospital received eight passengers, and all were listed in moderate or good condition Sunday night, spokeswoman Cheryl Smith said.
Another four passengers were routed to Valley Hospital, spokeswoman Gretchen Pappas said, but no further information on them was immediately available.
Leinbach said 24 people were brought to Las Vegas hospitals in moderate condition.
Eleven people were flown to Loma Linda, Calif., and two others to Needles, Calif., for treatment, Leinbach said.
Sun reporter
Ed Koch contributed to this report.
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