A Cardinal Coach Line charter bus crashed Thursday (April 12th, 2013) near Dallas, Texas on its way to an Oklahoma casino, leaving two dead and forty-one injured.
Federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are still working to ascertain what caused the accident. What is known is that the bus was in Irving traveling northbound on the President George Bush Turnpike near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport when it swerved across the highway without warning, hitting the concrete barriers on the side of the road and then overturning on the median.
The bus was filed with forty-five elderly people, all traveling to Durant, Oklahoma to visit the Choctaw Casino Resort together. According to the State Trooper Sergeant Lonny Haschel, spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, reported that the two fatalities were the organizer of the trip (“Casino” Sue Taylor, as she was called, from Hurst, aged eighty-one) and Paula Hahn, aged sixty-nine, from Fort Worth. According to her daughter, Marsha, “Casino” Sue had been organizing trips for her senior group for the past ten years.
The fifteen most critically injured, including the driver of the bus, were rushed to Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital, four of whom were placed in critical condition and one underwent surgery. Fourteen were taken to Irving’s Baylor Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Another five were taken to Irving’s Las Colinas Medical Center where they were given CAT scans for head injuries and then released.
Witness Ed Cluck, among the first on the scene, stopped his car when he saw the wreck and the smoke. He ran to the bus, unlatched its roof panels and assisted eight of the passengers off of the bus. He said people were piled on top of each other inside.
Robert Hare also stopped to help. He said many of the elderly passengers were in shock as he and other rescuers pulled and carried them off of the bus. He says that some had broken bones as well as cuts and bruises.
Survivor Dan Risik said he feels lucky to be alive and retells how quickly and unexpectedly the crash happened. He was seated near the middle of the bus and had his leg trapped by a woman landing on it when the bus overturned. He himself was lying on top of his friend.
Risik also reports that most of the passengers were not wearing seat belts, a common safety concern in buses.
Risik himself was taken to Baylor Medical Center, but suffered only superficial scrapes and was released shortly after 1:00pm.