Six killed as college baseball team bus plunges from overpass

[Dr. Jack]

Six killed as bus plunges from overpass


ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- At least six people were killed when a charter bus carrying a college baseball team from Ohio fell from an overpass onto Interstate 75 early Friday in Atlanta, police said.

Dozens also were injured in the crash just before dawn north of downtown, Atlanta Fire Department spokesman Byron Kennedy said.

Nine of the victims were in serious condition, Atlanta police spokesman Joe Cobb said, and another 20 were "walking wounded." There were 35 people on the bus, he said.

The bus exited I-75 south but apparently did not stop at the top of the exit ramp, plunging off the Northside Drive bridge onto the southbound lanes of the expressway, according to two drivers, whose vehicles were hit by the bus or debris falling off it.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter said he saw the wreck during his morning commute and initially thought it was a jack-knifed tractor-trailer before realizing it was a bus.

"There were young people crawling out of the bus. I just tried to help them as best I could," Mike Morris said.

The bus was carrying members of the Bluffton University baseball team, which according to its Web site, was scheduled to play Eastern Mennonite University on Saturday in Sarasota, Florida, before heading to a tournament in Fort Myers, Florida.

Bluffton University is a Mennonite Church USA affiliated-school south of Toledo, Ohio.

Aerial footage from the scene showed a mangled barrier fence on the bridge above the bus. Debris and luggage were scattered around the bus, and at least nine fire trucks were at the scene.

Georgia Department of Transportation cameras showed the bus lying on its side in the southbound lane of the expressway. Firefighters surrounded the bus.

The wreck closed I-75 in both directions, snarling morning rush-hour traffic, police said. Police later re-opened the northbound lanes.

James Grandey, the father of the team's coach, said his son, also named James, sustained injuries to one of his legs. The senior Grandey was interviewed by telephone from his home in Ohio.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it would investigate the crash because it involved a charter bus.

[guzzi]

terrible...