A shuttle bus carrying about two dozen women returning from a church retreat overturned Sunday on a highway in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains. Dozens were injured, two critically authorities said.
HIGHLAND, Calif. — A
shuttle bus carrying about two dozen women returning from a church retreat
overturned Sunday on a highway in Southern California’s San Bernardino
Mountains, leaving two critically injured, four with moderate injuries and 20
with minor injuries, authorities said. The bus turned on its
side across State Route 330 shortly after 2 p.m., San Bernardino County Fire
Capt. Jeremy Kern said.
It was
one of several buses carrying about 200 women who were returning from an annual
mountain retreat to their church in Downey, California, a church official said.
“We got the news right after regular Sunday
Service,” Robert Acosta, assistant to the senior pastor at Iglesia de Cristo
Ministerios Llamada Final, told the San Bernardino Sun. “It was unnerving, but
we immediately pulled together.”
Two
patients were airlifted to hospitals, and four more with moderate injuries were
taken to hospitals in ground ambulances, Kern Said. Twenty people had minor
injuries including scrapes and bruises and were examined at the scene. All of
the victims are expected to survive.
At one
point as it was coming down the mountain, the 2000 El Dorado bus made contact
with a Nissan Versa sedan, California Highway Patrol spokesman Juan Quintero
said. No one in the car was hurt.
The CHP
is investigating the cause.
The
highway was shut down for hours for a 16-mile stretch near Highland. The bus
was lying on its right side diagonally across the road and blocking the entire
highway.
The
crash site is about 60 miles east of Los Angeles and about 20 miles from the
site of a 2013 bus crash on another highway in the San Bernardino Mountains.
Eight people were killed in that crash of a tour bus from Tijuana, Mexico.
