Car Hits RTD Bus; 38 Injured : Accident: A 7-year-old boy is in critical condition after crash near USC campus. Two other people are seriously hurt.

A Rapid Transit District bus collided with a car near the USC campus during rush hour Friday afternoon, injuring at least 38 people, one of them a 7-year-old boy who was reported in critical condition at a hospital, Los Angeles police said.

“I thought an earthquake had hit us,” one of the passengers, Dennis Netter, 24, said. “All the people standing in the aisle fell down. Women were screaming. Babies were crying.”

Ten Fire Department ambulances and a helicopter were at the accident at Normandie Avenue and 37th Street, said Battalion Chief Tim Manning. Dozens of police officers were called in to hold back onlookers and detour traffic.

Fire officials said the most severely injured were two people from the car that hit the bus--the 7-year-old boy, who was transported by helicopter to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles in critical condition, and a 19-year-old man, who was taken by ambulance to the California Medical Center, where his condition was listed as serious.

In addition, one passenger from the bus was listed in serious condition at the medical center.

Fourteen other passengers from the bus were taken to hospitals by ambulance. Another 21 bus passengers were treated at the scene and released.

None of the injured were identified.

In the minutes after the accident, the crash scene looked like the site of a major disaster, with many of the injured lying on the ground, strapped to backboards as a precaution in case they had suffered back or neck injuries. Many of them laid there for more than an hour before ambulances were available to take them to hospitals.

“But it wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Manning said. “While there were a large number of patients, most of the injuries were minor.”

Sgt. Steve Nielson, an LAPD motorcycle officer, said the incident apparently began shortly after 3 p.m. when a car traveling east on 37th Street pulled into traffic and “clipped” a station wagon northbound on Normandie.

He said the collision sent the station wagon skidding out of control across the center line and into the left side of the southbound bus. The front of the station wagon was demolished by the impact, and the car gouged the length of the bus.

“That bus shook like the Colossus roller coaster ride at Magic Mountain,” Netter said. “We all started looking around, wondering just what had happened.”

“At first there was chaos,” said Mitchell White, 52, another passenger on the bus. “But everyone got calm pretty quick.”

Netter said the bus driver did his best to reassure passengers and announced that help was on the way.

Officials differed on how many were on the bus at the time of the accident, with estimates ranging between 33 and 41.