NYC: 'Bodies everywhere' after terrible bus crash

       Police launch criminal probe into crash that killed 14 passengers

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Fourteen passengers on this tour bus died in the weekend crash in New York City.

Police in New York City were investigating a bus driver's claim that he was driven off a major highway before his bus slid into a sign pole that sheared it end to end, killing 14 people.
The driver, Ophadell Williams, told police a tractor-trailer clipped his World Wide Tours bus just as it crossed the city line on a trip from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut early Saturday.
But New York state police said witnesses told them Williams was speeding on Interstate 95 before the crash, which left a horrific scene of blood, jumbled bodies and shattered glass near an next to the Bronx.
The 14 who died had taken a quick overnight trip to the casino and were returning to New York's Chinatown.
Police officers who clambered onto the wreckage, found "bodies everywhere," said Capt. Matthew Galvin of the NYPD 's emergency service unit, one of the first rescuers on the scene. "People were moaning and screaming for help."

"It's probably the worst accident I've ever seen in terms of the human toll.
— Capt. Matthew Galvin, veteran police officer

Some of the dead were tangled up with the living, he said. Though dazed, about seven people were able to walk away from the wreck on their own, he said.
"It's probably the worst accident I've ever seen in terms of the human toll," said Galvin, who has been a police offer 22 years.
As many as 20 passengers were treated at area hospitals. Eight were in serious condition, according to police. Several needed surgery.
The crash happened at 5:35 a.m. Saturday, with some of the 31 passengers still asleep. The bus scraped along the guard rail for about 90 metres, toppled and crashed into the support pole for a highway sign indicating the exit for the Hutchinson Parkway.
The pole knifed through the bus front to back along the window line, peeling the roof off all the way to the back tires. Most people aboard were hurled to the front of the bus on impact, fire department chief Edward Kilduff said.
The southbound lanes of the highway were closed for hours while emergency workers tended to survivors and removed bodies.
State police Maj. Michael Kopy said at a news conference Saturday night in Hawthorne, N.Y., that the crash was being handled "as if it is a criminal investigation."
"It will take a long period of time to determine what, if any, criminal acts may have occurred here," he said.
Kopy said police had received reports from witnesses that the bus driver had been speeding on the Interstate, where the limit is 90 kilometres an hour.
Williams, a 40-year-old bus driver from Brooklyn, was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Kopy said blood had been drawn from the driver for analysis and that state police were working with authorities in Connecticut and Mohegan Sun officials to determine what the driver's activities were before the accident.
"At this point it appears that the operator lost control of the vehicle for what is as yet an undetermined reason," Kopy said.
He declined to identify the passengers or to describe their injuries. "The pole did go through the top half of the bus," he said.

Surrounded by dead

Chung Ninh, 59, told The New York Times and NY1 News that he had been asleep in his seat, then suddenly found himself hanging upside-down from his seatbelt, surrounded by the dead and screaming. One man bled from a severed arm.
Ninh said that when he tried to help one bloodied woman, the driver told him to stop, because she was dead. "'Forget this one. Help another one,"' he said the driver told him. He said he and other passengers who were able climbed out through a skylight.
Passenger Jose Hernandez, 49, said he also was asleep at the time of the crash.
"We tried to help people, but there was twisted metal in the way," Hernandez told the Times.
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said earlier that police were looking for the tractor-trailer, which did not stop after the crash. He said the truck was in a lane to the bus's left, although it was unclear whether the two vehicles touched.
State police said later they were interviewing the driver of a tractor-trailer in the area at the time of the crash. They said the trailer had been located on Long Island and the tractor was found in Westchester County. Both were being inspected in Farmingdale, on Long Island, to determine if they might have clipped the bus.
Video from a camera on the bus had been obtained by authorities, but not yet analyzed, Kopy said.
Kelly said investigators were trying to determine the exact speed the bus was travelling before the crash. A device that can record such information, similar to a flight data recorder on an airplane, was expected to be examined overnight.
Limo driver Homer Martinez happened on the scene moments after the wreck and saw other drivers sprinting from their cars to assist the injured.
"People were saying, 'Oh my God. Oh my God,' holding their hands on their heads," Martinez said. "I saw people telling other people not to go there, 'You don't want to see this."'
The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team of investigators.
Christopher Hart, the vice-chair of the board, said the team would be looking at the motor carrier's safety programs, including those involving driver fatigue, as well as highway design and the bus itself. He said that part of the investigation could take several days.
Many of the passengers on the bus were Chinatown residents. They ranged in age from 20 to 50, officials said. Fifteen were being treated at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.
A hospital spokeswoman, Barbara DeIorio, said some injuries were serious but had no immediate information on how many were gravely hurt. Five more were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where two were on life support, breathing with the assistance of machines.
World Wide Travel of Greater New York, the operator of the bus, said in a statement that the company was "heartbroken" and co-operating with investigators.
"We are a family-owned company and realize words cannot begin to express our sorrow to the families of those who lost their lives or were injured in this tragic accident.," she said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with them."

Past violations for fatigue

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records listed World Wide Travel as having at least two other accidents in which people were injured in the past 24 months. The agency flagged the company for possible extra scrutiny because of violations involving driver fatigue regulations.
The bus was one of scores that travel daily between Chinatown, in Manhattan, and the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in southeastern Connecticut.
Mohegan Sun, in Uncasville, Connecticut, has estimated 20 per cent of its business comes from Asian spending and caters to Chinese-American gamblers. Its website has a Chinese-language section offering gaming and bus promotions.