27 injured when bus travelling from Toronto to NYC crashes near Syracuse

A tour bus heading from Toronto to New York City crashed into a wrecked car and a tractor-trailer on Interstate 81 outside Syracuse early Thursday, injuring more than two dozen people, authorities said.

The Pine Hill Trailways bus with 52 passengers on board was travelling south on I-81 around 2:30 a.m. when it slammed into a car that had just crashed into a guard rail and came to rest in the highway’s left lane just south of Syracuse, the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office said.

Deputies said the bus then hit the rear a tractor-trailer whose driver had pulled over on the highway’s shoulder to offer assistance to the car’s driver.

Twenty-six of the passengers and the bus driver, identified as Kelvin Sharpe Sr. of Buffalo, were injured, officials said.

It took emergency crews two hours to extricate Sharpe from the vehicle’s smashed-in front end, deputies said. He was listed in critical, but stable, condition at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse and was awaiting surgery.

The injured passengers mostly suffered lower extremity, chest, back and facial injuries, all of them apparently minor, police said. They were transported to hospitals in the 10 ambulances and other emergency vehicles that responded to the crash scene.

Thirteen patients were treated at the Upstate University Hospital and 11 of them were released, a spokeswoman said in an email to The Canadian Press.

Thirty-nine passengers continued on to New York City.

Onondaga County sheriff’s detective Jon Seeber told the Post-Standard that there was a language barrier between some of the passengers and rescue crews.

The driver of the car was charged with driving while intoxicated, vehicular assault in the 2nd degree and moving from a lane unsafely. Police identified him as Robert Tarbell, 36, of Nedrow, a hamlet in Onondaga.

A judge set his bail at $15,000 on Thursday morning. He’s due back in court on Wednesday.

I-81’s southbound lanes were closed until shortly before 5:30 a.m.

Deputies said the bus left Toronto on Wednesday evening and was scheduled to arrive in New York City around 6:30 a.m. Thursday. The uninjured passengers were taken to Syracuse’s bus station, where some boarded another bus for Manhattan, while others arranged their own transportation back home.

The bus is owned by Trailways of New York, a Hurley, N.Y.-based company that also operates Adirondack Trailways, New York Trailways and NeOn Bus.

According to the company the driver is a veteran with a clean driving record.

The American Bus Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that issued a statement on behalf of Pine Hill, said the company operates buses daily between Ontario and New York City.

Dan Ronan, an ABA spokesman, said 31 people boarded the bus in Toronto on Wednesday night, and it picked up a further 21 in Buffalo and Rochester. Company officials were still trying to determine where the injured passengers are from, he said.

Listen to part of Ronan’s interview with 680News below.

Robert Johnson told Syracuse’s WSTM-TV that he boarded the bus in Rochester and was awake when the crash occurred, but many of the other passengers were sleeping at the time.

“All I heard was a boom and my head hit the seat; I mean mad noise, it was crazy,” Johnson said. “I never experienced that in my life and I’m still scared to death by it.”

Minister of State Lynne Yelich has said on Twitter consular officials are following the story and are ready to provide assistance.

With files from The Canadian Press and Toronto staff

Video courtesy of WSYR TV