17 Hurt as Auto and Bus Collide : Traffic: RTD coach crossed several lanes on both sides of Pasadena Freeway before stopping 15 feet short of Arroyo Seco. Rush-hour travel was tied up for miles.

Seventeen people were injured in a spectacular accident on the Pasadena Freeway on Friday when a car bounced off a guardrail and into a transit bus, which careened across several lanes of traffic and stopping 15 feet short of the Arroyo Seco.

“If this had to happen, it was the day for it to happen,” said a Southern California Rapid Transit District supervisor, referring to the light, post-Thanksgiving traffic. “Any other day there would be (vehicles) standing all along here.”

Paramedics treated the injured at the scene, then took them to five area hospitals in seven Los Angeles City Fire Department rescue ambulances. Injuries ranged from minor to moderate, including bruises, scrapes and fractures, according to the RTD.

The accident occurred about 3:40 p.m. near the Golden State Freeway and Avenue 26 and tied up freeway traffic for miles in both directions.

The California Highway Patrol said the Line 401 bus, carrying 27 passengers, was traveling south at 40 to 45 m.p.h. when a car next to it went out of control, hit a guardrail and collided with the bus.

As the bus driver, Armando Jimenez, 38, fought for control, the bus veered, hit a guardrail, careened across all the southbound lanes of traffic, smashed through another guardrail, hurtled across a freeway divider and narrowly missed a concrete pillar, the CHP said.

Then, investigators said, the bus crossed into the northbound freeway lanes, hit a car head-on and possibly brushed two other autos before ending up with its back end on the freeway and its nose over a concrete divider of the San Fernando Road on-ramp.

It was about 15 feet from the Arroyo Seco.

One of the injured passengers, Dora Sorto, 31, who lives in Koreatown in Los Angeles, was still visibly shaken and tearful hours later as she limped away from County-USC Medical Center without being examined by a doctor.

Speaking in Spanish, she told a reporter that she was sitting near the front of the bus when she saw “a little car” hit the bus and the driver put on the brakes.

“We were all thrown to the floor,” said Sorto, a housekeeper who was returning from her job in Pasadena. “Everyone was screaming after the bus hit the railing. The driver kept repeating, ‘Take it easy. It’s all right.’ ”

At the scene, CHP Sgt. John Novak said, “It was really light traffic. We were lucky. If it had been normal traffic we would have had some serious injuries.”

The CHP issued a SigAlert traffic advisory after the crash. Two northbound lanes of the freeway were kept open until shortly after 5 p.m., when fuel was discovered leaking from the bus.