UMass Students Injured In Vt. Bus Rollover
BOSTON (CBS/AP) -- UPDATED: 10:30 p.m. Police now say 17 people were injured when a tour bus carrying University of Massachusetts students on a ski trip to Quebec crashed on a Vermont highway.
Officials initially reported as many as 38 passengers were injured.
State police have updated the figures saying 16 passengers were taken to hospitals in Brattleboro and Springfield, Vt. with non-life threatening injuries. The driver of the bus was air lifted to Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital in Lebanon, N.H. As of 10:30 p.m. Friday he was listed in stable condition.
WBZ-TV's Paul Burton talks with students who were on the bus.
State police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro cited the chaotic scene as a reason for the discrepancy.
Tour World out of Danville, PA, the bus company that is operating the bus, tells WBZ that the bus that crashed was one of three carrying University of Massachusetts Amherst students.
The coach bus was traveling north just before 4 p.m. when it rolled over and slid down an embankment.
Raw Video Of The Scene From SkyEye
The crash happened on I-91 at mile marker 22, which is in Putney. The crash closed the southbound lanes for several hours.
Dozens of ambulances, fire trucks and emergency vehicles responded.
Seven of the injured were taken to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital with cuts and bruises, and they were treated and released, spokeswoman Barbara Gentry said. An eighth had a neck injury and was X-rayed, but he, too, was released, she said.
UMass-Amherst spokesman Patrick Callahan said the group was on a private ski tour, not a UMass ski club trip.
WBZ's Jim Smith talks with Stephanie Dasaro of the Vermont State Police.
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