Bus Crash Injures 26 on New York Interstate

A bus bound for New York City crashed into a wrecked car and a tractor-trailer on Interstate 81 outside Syracuse early today, injuring more than two dozen people, authorities said. The Pine Hill Trailways bus with 52 passengers on board was traveling south on I-81 around 2:30am when it slammed into a car that had crashed into a guard rail, said deputies. After hitting the car, the bus struck the rear of a tractor-trailer whose driver had pulled over on the shoulder to offer assistance to the car's driver.

Twenty-six of the passengers and the bus driver were injured, official said. It took emergency crews two hours to extricate the driver from the vehicle's smashed-in front end, and he was in critical condition at a Syracuse hospital. The injured passengers mostly suffered lower extremity, chest, back, and facial injuries, all of them apparently minor. Police say the car driver, 36-year-old Robert Tarbell of Nedrow, has been charged with driving while intoxicated. Deputies said the bus left Toronto yesterday evening and was scheduled to arrive in New York city around 6:30am. (More bus crash stories.)