BY PATRICIA POTHIER, Lions’ Pride Staff Writer
The Associated Press reported that the gruesome bus crash on Saturday, Mar. 12, took the lives of 15 people. A 70-year-old man who had been in critical condition passed away Monday, Mar. 14, at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York. The World Wide Tours bus returning from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut scraped along a guard rail before flipping over and colliding with a pole that sliced the bus almost completely in half. The bus, carrying 32 people, slid roughly 300 feet along Interstate 95 leaving a mass of bodies and gnarled metal on the New England Thruway in the Bronx, New York.
The reports were grisly. Several of the passengers stated that they had been asleep when the crash occurred. Chung Ninh, a passenger on board, said that he found himself hanging upside-down in the midst of the dead and screaming. He also remembered that a man close by was bleeding heavily due to a severed arm. Another passenger, Jose Hernandez, told officials that when trying to help other passengers he could not because there was too much-twisted metal in the way.
The driver, Ophadell Eric Williams, told police that his bus had been sideswiped by a tractor-trailer; a story that quickly fell apart after witnesses and surviving passengers reported that there had been no tractor-trailer. In fact, passengers stated that Williams had swerved several times during the trip for no reason that they could see.
The suspicious circumstances surrounding the crash prompted an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board which resulted in the discovery of previous charges to Williams’ driving record. In 1995, he received tickets for speeding and driving without a license. His driving privileges were suspended after he failed to address the charges.
Williams’ record goes back even farther than 1995. He was initially charged with second-degree murder and was convicted of manslaughter in 1991 for his role in a 1990 stabbing. He was later convicted of grand larceny and served three years in prison. The unnerving question as to how the convicted felon was able to attain a valid commercial driver’s license has been at the heart of the investigation. A spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Duane DeBruye, stated that there are no federal regulations that would prohibit states from issuing a license to a bus driver with a criminal record.
Many of the victims were residents of Chinatown, New York. Several community organizations have offered to help the families of the victims to cope with their tragic losses. The tour bus was one of several buses that travel daily between Chinatown and the casinos in Connecticut. World Wide Travel of Greater New York, the operator of the tour bus, was reported to have had at least two other accidents in the past 24 months in which people were injured. The company stated that it was heartbroken and cooperating with investigators.
Williams could potentially face charges that could range anywhere from mere traffic violations to negligent homicide charges. The vice-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Christopher Hart, stated that investigators wanted to know what Williams ate, drank, and how much he slept before getting behind the wheel. Investigators hope to know more about the crash after viewing a surveillance video from the Mohegan Sun which will shed light on Williams’ actions 72 hours prior to the incident.
