4 foreign students die in Seattle bus crash

One student described how glass rained down on people’s faces inside the bus, and she witnessed people jumping from the vehicle in the aftermath of the collision.

“Two people flew out of the front of the bus and I believe two people flew out of the Ride the Duck bus”, Lance Jacobsen said.

“It all happened so fast”.

Four people died at the scene, authorities said.

Passengers on board the bus and the “Ride the Ducks” amphibious vehicle – used for tours in several US cities – could be seen crawling out of the wreckage, some of them dazed and bloodied, while others were carried away on stretchers.

“Today, the North Seattle College community learned devastating news that four of our students were tragically killed in a vehicle accident on the Aurora Bridge”, the school said in a statement.

Fire crews removed the injured from the amphibious duck bus, along with the charter bus full of students.

Dozens more people were hurt in the crash on the busy Aurora Bridge yesterday morning. Susan Gregg, a spokeswoman for Harborview and the University of Washington medical centers, released a statement early Friday that gave the conditions of some of them. Ten patients were transferred to other hospitals. Stangl said the two people declared dead initially and most of those seriously injured were on the charter bus.

The stretch of highway where the accident took place reopened for traffic about 11 p.m. Thursday, the state Transportation Department said.

Melissa Mixon, spokeswoman for North Seattle College, told AFP that 45 students and staff with the school’s global program were on board the bus.She could not immediately provide information on the nationality or age of the victims.

Ride the Ducks has been involved in two other collisions, in December 2010 and June 2011, according to the Seattle Times. The “pure immensity” of the Ride the Ducks accident reportedly proved an obstacle for first responders.

Bulzomi said Traceys company didnt agree to another of Porters requests, however: that Ride the Ducks hire separate tour guides so that drivers wont be responsible for narrating tours while driving.That issue is a legitimate safety concern, former driver Holtz said.“When youre operating as it usually is, the driver wears many different hats, ” said Holtz, who captained a Duck from 2007 to 2009.

“It was very traumatic, intense, scary – very scary”, said one witness, Larry Smith, who was riding his skateboard along the sidewalk when the crash happened. No words are adequate to express the absolute pain and sorrow we all feel as a result of receiving this devastating news.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Seattle also reported Thursday it annually inspects the company’s 20 Ducks now in operation to ensure they’re fit to operate in Lake Union.

Some victims were lying on the road, while others milled about seemingly in shock and falling down, she said.

Lying in his hospital bed, Tim Gesner, 61, of Orlando, Florida, told The Seattle Times that he was standing in the back of the duck boat and trying to take a picture.

It is unclear why the duck boat – a street vehicle that can double as a boat – hit the bus as they drove across the six-lane bridge, Stangl told reporters.