O.C. Man Injured as 7 Die in India Bus Crash

Five Americans were killed and four injured, including a Newport Beach man, in a bus crash Thursday near the Indian city of Agra, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said.

Local news agencies reported that two Indians also were killed when the bus, carrying 30 passengers, went out of control, landed in a ditch and rolled over.

The Americans were on an excursion organized by the University of Pittsburgh to visit the Taj Mahal. Four of the five killed were students participating in a semester-long international study program that goes around the world on a 23,500-ton passenger ship. The husband of a university staff member also was killed.

Two Californians were among the dead. UCLA senior Cherese Mari Laulhere, 21, was a geography major slated to graduate next spring. Laulhere grew up in Long Beach and attended Wilson High School. This was her first trip abroad, said her father, Larry Laulhere. Jenna Druck, 21, from Del Mar, was a communications major at the University of Colorado.

The injured include Thomas Broyles, 21, of Newport Beach, a junior majoring in civil engineering at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

His father, Jim Broyles of Newport Beach, said Thomas had joined about 600 other American students and faculty in February for the tour called Semester at Sea, which began in South America and went to Africa and Asia.

“They spend their class time on the ship,” Broyles said. “And when they get on the port, they spend three to four days on tour.”

Broyles said his son told him on Wednesday that the bus had fishtailed, gone off the road and overturned.

Thomas Broyles, a graduate of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, suffered head cuts and a minor fracture of a collarbone, his father said. He was released from the hospital Thursday.

“He was in good spirits,” James Broyles said. “My wife and I are relieved that he’s doing fine. . . . But it was an unfortunate situation for all the other people involved.”

Thomas Broyles is expected to continue the trip, which will proceed to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He will return in May.

Semester at Sea was first organized by Chapman University, then Chapman College, in Orange in 1964. Chapman operated it until 1975. The University of Pittsburgh has sponsored the program since 1980.