LITTLETON, N.H. — Traffic on a northern New Hampshire highway was flowing normally again Tuesday, hours after a tour bus turned over in the median, injuring 23.
The bus was carrying about two dozen Koreans from Quebec to Boston when the driver lost control on snowy Interstate 93 in Littleton Monday at about 8:15 p.m. The tour bus accident is the third in the Northeast this month, including a crash in New York City in which 15 people were killed.
In New Hampshire, a light early spring snow had fallen, bringing with it intermittent fog to the area where the driver lost control on the interstate, near the Vermont border.
Police said five passengers were seriously injured and were taken to Littleton Regional Hospital. Debra Lynaugh, an administrative assistant for community relations, said Tuesday that two people were taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, one was still at the hospital in stable condition and two were released Monday night.
Eleven people were treated for lesser injuries and seven for minor injuries at other hospitals.
A representative of the bus operator, Big Boy Coach Inc. of Flushing, N.Y., said he was driving on the interstate Tuesday to pick up passengers.
Fuel spilled after the accident, and state officials were called in to help clean it up. WMUR-TV said the bus was later towed to a storage area where passengers’ luggage was unloaded.
On March 12, a bus headed from a Connecticut casino to New York City’s Chinatown crashed into a pole in the Bronx, killing 15. The driver, Ophadell Williams, said Monday that he is “having a difficult time.” Williams told NBC’s New York affiliate that he was having difficulty breathing and is “really hurt about the whole situation.”
Investigators are looking into whether he was asleep or distracted at the wheel. He has not been charged.
New York increased its enforcement of tour buses after the crash, pulling buses and drivers off the road over the weekend at checkpoints statewide in a case that is focusing attention on tour bus safety nationwide, officials said.
And last week in New Jersey, a bus crashed as it traveled from New York City’s Chinatown to Philadelphia, killing the driver and a passenger and injuring dozens of others.