2 Killed in Greyhound Bus Crash

A Greyhound bus with 44 people aboard veered off U.S. 101 near here early Sunday, slid down an embankment, flipped on its side and hit a tree, killing a pregnant woman and a man, officials said.

Dozens of others were injured, although by nightfall only two remained hospitalized.

The bus, heading from Los Angeles to San Francisco, was about 75 miles north of Santa Barbara shortly after 7 a.m. when “there is a strong possibility that the driver fell asleep and ran off the road,” Lt. Dan Minor, commander of the Santa Maria-area California Highway Patrol, said at a news conference.

“We have reason to believe that driver fatigue may have played a significant factor here,” Minor said. Authorities were investigating whether Samuel Bishop’s hours behind the wheel violated state and federal laws regarding overworked drivers, Minor said.

Martha Contreras, 23, of Santa Maria and Faro Jahani, 50, of San Francisco, who were sitting in the same left-side row near the rear of the bus, died at the scene. Contreras’ husband told authorities that his wife was seven months pregnant. The fetus did not survive.

The injuries ranged “from minor to moderate,” said Kathleen Hernandez, communications manager for Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, where most of the injured were taken.

The bus was less than half a mile south of the Betteravia Road exit, traveling about 60 to 65 mph, when it “suddenly drifted to the right,” Minor said. There were no indications that the driver applied the brakes or signaled, or that there were mechanical problems with the bus, Minor said.

Benny Elias, a 39-year-old mechanic from Richmond, Calif., who was en route to San Francisco, said that the bus felt “like a roller coaster’” as it left the road.

Witnesses told police that the bus moved into the left lane, then back into the right lane. The bus continued veering right, then jumped the shoulder and slid along the embankment, where it hit a eucalyptus tree.

Minor said that Bishop, 63, had been called to work an unscheduled shift. Bishop started driving from Fresno, where he lives, to Los Angeles about 8 p.m. Saturday, Minor said. In Los Angeles, he started the drive to San Francisco about 3:15 a.m.

Bishop was supposed to end his shift in San Luis Obispo, where another driver was scheduled to replace him, Minor said.

Kim Plaskett, a Greyhound spokeswoman, said she didn’t have details on the accident and couldn’t comment because it was still under investigation.

She said Greyhound has implemented “rigorous fatigue control” for drivers that is stricter than U.S. Department of Transportation rules, limiting actual driving time per shift to 9.5 hours. Federal regulations permit 10 hours of driving following eight or more consecutive hours off duty.

Plaskett said dispatchers and supervisors are trained to recognize fatigue and that the company works to minimize irregular schedules. “Ninety-nine percent of our drivers sleep at home every night,” she said. The company also encourages drivers who feel sleepy to take time off, she said.

Minor said the district attorney will decide whether charges are filed against the driver. “The direction of our investigation is toward misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter,” he said.

There was no evidence that any other vehicle was involved in the accident, said Capt. Keith Cullom, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. “It was just the bus.”

The accident brought northbound traffic on the freeway to a standstill for six hours. It was noon before the bus was righted, Cullom said.

Still dazed hours later, a few survivors talked about the accident as they waited outside Lompoc Hospital to board what a Greyhound driver called a “rescue bus.”

Mike Patton, a 45-year-old flooring contractor from El Centro, said he was on his way to Santa Maria, sitting a few rows behind the driver. Patton recalled seeing an open, traffic-free road.

“It was clear and easy,” Patton said.

After the accident, Patton said he leaped from his seat and extricated the driver, who was hanging upside down tangled in his seat belt. Patton said he then kicked out a front window.

Once he was outside the overturned bus, Patton said, he banged on the rooftop escape hatch until someone inside threw it open.

Bloodied passengers emerged one after another, helped down into the brush alongside the highway by those already outside.

Patton said he was headed to Santa Maria to serve a 16-month jail term for a crime he did not identify. By doing his time, Patton said, he hoped to set a good example for his teenage son.

“I’m trying to straighten my life out,” Patton said. “And it was almost over.”

Takafumi Okjima, a 44-year-old shipping company employee from San Francisco, said he woke to a thunderous crash and the screams of other passengers.

“It was just a nightmare,” he said. “Everything in the bus was all crumpled up, people were screaming, and my mouth was full of dirt.”

Antonia Atilano said she boarded the bus in Santa Barbara after a long Thanksgiving visit with her family.

All the windows on the vehicle’s right side were shattered and tires were blown out, she said.

“I really don’t want to get back on a bus today,” Atilano said. “But I need to be in San Francisco tomorrow for school and my job.”

Fifty firefighters and paramedics converged on the accident site, Cullom said. Some passengers had to be cut out of their seats, and hydraulic equipment was needed to pull four people from the wreckage.

Triage was performed at the scene, and two of the most seriously injured were flown by helicopter to Marian Medical Center. Most of the injured were taken by ambulance to the medical center, with others going to Arroyo Grande Community Hospital and Lompoc Hospital, Cullom said.

The accident left a lot of “walking wounded,” Cullom said, “but we don’t expect any increase in the number of deceased.”

The bus left the Greyhound station in downtown Los Angeles about 3:15 a.m. as scheduled, according to a CHP news release. The bus normally stops in a dozen towns and cities en route to San Francisco, where it was originally scheduled to arrive at 3:20 p.m., said Greyhound spokeswoman Anna Folmnsbee.

“All our buses go through a routine check before they leave on a scheduled run,” Folmnsbee said, adding that the bus had passed inspection before it left Los Angeles. The Dallas-based company planned to conduct its own investigation, Folmnsbee said.

By early afternoon Sunday, dozens of survivors had been released from the three hospitals and were boarding buses sent by Greyhound to take them to their destinations between Santa Maria and San Francisco.

“Most of the injuries were minor,” said Albert Schultz, an emergency room physician at Marian Medical Center. Many of the passengers had lacerations and contusions, he said.

The only patients expected to stay overnight were a man with a fractured femur, who was awaiting surgery, and another man who had been bruised and cut and had reported chest and abdominal pain. An exam showed no internal injuries, but he was being kept overnight for observation and pain control, Schultz said.

Times staff writers Jia-Rui Chong and Valerie Reitman contributed to this report.