1 Killed, 46 Injured as Tour Bus Overturns

A tour bus carrying European tourists from Las Vegas to Mammoth Lakes overturned on a two-lane highway east of this small eastern Sierra town Friday, killing one passenger and injuring 46 others, the California Highway Patrol said.

The CHP said the Southwest Charter Co. bus was traveling at an unknown speed on a slight downhill grade along Highway 168, a road that traverses the White Mountains, when it rolled once after the driver failed to negotiate a sharp turn. The bus came to rest on its wheel about 4 1/2 miles east of here.

One passenger, identified as Marguerite Finat, 60, was pronounced dead at the scene. Earlier CHP reports that two passengers had died were incorrect.

The injured were taken to Bishop’s small Northern Inyo Hospital, where hospital Administrator Herman Spencer said six of the passengers were in critical condition with internal injuries and broken bones.

CHP Sgt. Ray Dixon said the bus was traveling in third gear, when the driver, identified as Juan Garcia, 30, of Phoenix, attempted to shift into a lower gear but found he couldn’t and hit the brakes.

Dixon said that when the brakes failed to slow the bus enough as it approached a sharp curve the driver turned into the bank on the right side, then lost control as the bus slanted across the road to the left and rolled.

When help arrived, most of the dust-covered passengers were sitting beside the road, many with blood on their faces. Others wandered around the crash scene seemingly in a daze.

At the hospital in Bishop, Spencer estimated that about a third of the passengers suffered scrapes, bumps and bruises; another third were treated for moderate injuries.

He said 46 patients arrived at the hospital within an hour to an hour and a half.

Hospital attendants encountered a language problem immediately. Many of the passengers--including Germans, French, Belgians and Austrians--were unable to speak English. Volunteers from the community were recruited to help the staff, Spencer said.

“Our biggest limitation is that we only have a 32-bed hospital,” he said.

The overflow patients or those with injuries that could not be treated in Bishop were scheduled for transfer to other hospitals in Mammoth Lakes and in Reno.

After treatment, some of the patients were driven by police to Bishop Auditorium to wait for arrangements to be made for overnight accommodations.

In Phoenix, a spokesperson for Southwest Charter Co., said the company is “very concerned” about the accident and the owner, Mark Pike, made immediate arrangements to fly to Bishop.

Friday’s accident was the second deadly bus crash in the eastern Sierra in four years. Twenty-one elderly Southern California residents were killed north of Bridgeport in May, 1986, when a gamblers’ special returning from Reno careened into an icy, swollen river.

Twenty other passengers were injured.

Times staff writer John Kendall and correspondent Martin Forstenzer contributed to this story.