1 Dead, Dozens Injured in Illinois Bus Crash

Aug. 03--A University of Missouri graduate student was killed and dozens of other people injured when a double-decker Megabus bound from Chicago smashed into a concrete pillar of an overpass on Interstate 55 Thursday afternoon, state police say.

The bus, with about 64 passengers listed on the manifest, apparently blew a tire and skidded into the center pillar around 1:20 p.m. near Litchfield, about 60 miles north ofSt. Louis, police say. As many as half the people on the southbound bus were injured, according to State Police Capt. Scott Compton.

Four to five of the injured were trapped and had to be extricated, including the woman who died, he said.

State police, citing preliminary information, said the woman who died was Aditi R. Avhad, about 25, a citizen of India.

Avhad was born in 1987, but police did not have a birth date.

Christian Basi, spokesman for the University of Missouri, confirmed Avhad is an active graduate student at the university in Columbia, which was on the route of the bus.

He could provide no other information immediately.

Television footage from the scene showed crews on ladders reaching inside the smashed front end of the bus. Thirty ambulances and five medical helicopters responded, and I-55 was shut down in both directions from the Carlinville exit to the Litchfield exit.

Compton said he was one of the first on the scene, and many of the passengers were already out of the bus. "Some of them . . . were a little more concerned or acting eratically, but it was relatively calm.

"There were all sorts of injuries, extremities, leg injuries, neck injuries," he said. "And there were several cuts to the heads and the legs and things like that."

Compton said a hard rain in the drought-ravaged area slowed down reconstruction of the crash briefly but "did not impede" extrications. He said the exact number of people on the bus was still being confirmed tonight as the investigation continued. A bus company statement said "more than 70" people were believed to have been on the bus.

Megabus passenger Eliana Siegal, of West Rogers Park, said the time from when the bus veered off the road to when it slammed into the concrete pillar felt like about five seconds.

"I flew forward and my glasses were smashed into the back of the seat in front of me," said Siegal, 16. "People were panicking and babies were crying -- a woman across the aisle from me was screaming that her leg was broken."

Siegal, who was riding on the top tier of the double-decker bus, said she and other passengers rushed off the bus as quickly as they could out of fear it might explode. But the driver and at least one other passenger were trapped, she said.

"There was a lot of manpower spent trying to get the people who were trapped out of the bus," Siegal said.

Siegal was taken to a community center in Litchfield. She said she was traveling alone, on her way to meet friends for a concert in St. Louis.

Siegal said she believed she was uninjured because her father gave her a dollar to give to charity, a Jewish tradition that helped protect her en route.

"I believe it was that money that kept me out without a scratch," said Siegal.

On his way to Kansas City to see family, Michael Martin of Minneapolis said he was asleep but woke up on the floor with bloodied people standing all around him and screaming.

"All I heard was hollering and screaming, blood,"Martin said. "There was the front window."

"I was like, in shock, in a daze," said Martin, 36. "A guy grabbed me ... told me I was in shock, my neck was swollen all up."

Riders were from many different places, Martin said.

One rider near the front was stuck from waist up and hollering, a child was stuck in a seat but calmer, Martin said.

"I just kept hearing people hollering," Martin said. "There was blood everywhere."

"Pain and shock," Martin said. "Little kids were screaming and crying."

But Martin praised the response from the Litchfield community. "They were here in no time," Martin said.

Several drivers on the highway pulled over to help the bus passengers, Martin said.

Martin said he went to a hospital in Litchfield, with minor head and neck injuries.

"God is good," said Martin. "I'm ain't saying I deserve to be alive (instead of) nobody else."

Eleanor Klein, a 58-year-old retired Sears accountant from Canaryville, said she was traveling to St. Louis for her first time with a sister and two nephews to take in a baseball game and the zoo.

One 11-year-old nephew, Nicholas Eckstein, was taken to St. Louis for a broken leg along with his mother, who was also injured.

Of the woman who died, Klein said, "She was just sitting in the wrong place."

Klein, who got only three stitches for a cut in her lip, said: "It had to be some sort of miracle. ... It had to be where I was sitting."

"I was thrown into the aisle. My leg went under me," Klein said. "I couldn't get up. Somebody started yelling 'smoke.' I couldn't move. I said, 'Somebody please help me' and three people helped me."

Standing with a bloodstained shirt and jacket, Klein said: "I never was in anything like that and never want to be again.

"It could have been worse. More people could have been killed and hurt.

"It was a full bus. There was nowhere to go even. We seen him swerve and he just hit it, full impact."

Klein said they planned to go ahead with their trip to St. Louis.

On his way to a wedding in St. Louis, Sammy Lee, 30, of Evanston said the crash happened quickly and there was little time to react.

"It was terrible," Lee said. "It happened really fast. You hear the bump and then you see the bus go off road, and people started screaming and started crying."

Phillip Keophaphone, 24, of Kansas City was traveling back home with several others he worked with on a series of photo shoots at Navy Pier and beach sites in Chicago over the last week.

"Honestly, I was asleep," said Keophaphone, a wardrobe stylist. "I just woke up to screaming."

"It was like a movie," he said, describing the scene after the crash. "Just God willing, there was a lot of helpful people."

"I'm not injured at all," he said. "So I just started helping as many people as I could."

His friends were still in the hospital but with no serious injuries.

But thinking about his walking away uninjured? "It's God," he said. "I can't take credit for it. I just have strong faith."

He said "a lot of people were thrown out of their seats."

"I didn't know what to do," said Jaquan Thibo, 17, a South Side resident who received a gash over his left eye that needed a bandage. He hit his head on the seat in front of him.

He said he was traveling with his younger brother on their way to visit their mother in St. Louis.

"Because God is our savior, (he got) a second chance," Thibo said.

The state police said preliminary reports showed at least 33 people were taken to area hospitals.

Authorities said a 24-year-old man was airlifted to St. Louis University Hospital with multiple fractures, and another person was flown to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

Four people were airlifted to Memorial Hospital in Springfield, and another two were taken there by ambulance, according to spokesman Michael Leathers. Their conditions were not known.

Sixteen people were taken to St. Francis Hospital in Litchfield and as many as four more were on the way, officials said. Most of them had moderate fractures, they said.

Three patients were transported to Hillsboro Area Hospital. None of those patients was in critical condition, officials said.

Memorial Hospital in Staunton received five patients, all of them with non-life threatening injuries, according to hospital CEO Sue Campbell. "We're receiving the less severe injuries -- bumps, bruises or possible lacerations," she said. "Our doctors and nurses are receiving and assessing patients currently."

Campbell said the hospital anticipates more patients could arrive.

The entire interstate had been closed during the response but by Thursday night had been reopened.

The Litchfield School District sent school buses to transport uninjured people to the community center in the town, about five miles away.

About 36 passengers from the bus were taken on two school buses to the community center in Litchfield, said Janis Johns, transportation director of Litchfield Community Unit School District 12. The passengers were either uninjured or mildly injured and included some children, Johns said. One woman was brought on a stretcher in the school bus.

The school district sent a third school bus to the crash site but it wasn't needed, Johns said. "We're close to the highway. We try to help out when we can," Johns said.

The Red Cross will be notified and coolers of water will be provided, she said. "It was very warm out there," she said, and some crash survivors were overheated.

The bus was on its way to St. Louis from Chicago, then was scheduled to head to Kansas City.

A statement from the megabus.com company said arrangements were being made to get passengers to their destinations.

"The thoughts and prayers of our entire staff go out to everyone involved, particularly the family of the person who has died," according to the statement.

The driver of the bus was undergoing surgery but his injuries did not appear to be life-threatening, the company said, and their staff is cooperating with state police in the ongoing investigation.

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