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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
A Niagara Falls trip, then glass everywhere: How a New York bus tour | |
turned deadly | |
By Nic Anderson, Leigh Waldman, CNN | |
Updated: | |
6:26 PM EDT, Sun August 24, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
It looked like a scene from a movie or video game, Rob Glinski said. | |
A tour bus, heading back to New York City after a trip to the American | |
side of Niagara Falls, was swerving between lanes on the New York State | |
Thruway when it crashed just after noon on Friday. | |
The bus driver got distracted and lost control, officials said, | |
overcorrecting and rolling over on the interstate, near the town of | |
Pembroke, about 40 miles east of Niagara Falls. | |
Glinski said it was like someone had taken a snow globe and shaken it. | |
He thought about the more than 50 passengers onboard, many of whom | |
might not have been wearing seat belts. | |
First responders swarmed the area to help the passengers, some of whom | |
were ejected or trapped. Many of the passengers, some from China and | |
the Philippines, spoke little English, so along with the ambulances and | |
the tow trucks, translators were brought in to help police sort out | |
what happened. | |
“So many people were hurt and some of them are smaller than me, maybe | |
4 or 5 years old,” Zihan Lnfu, 8 years old, told CNN affiliate . | |
Five people were killed in the crash, including a Columbia University | |
student from China. At least 47 of the passengers on the bus were taken | |
to four regional hospitals for treatment for critical and minor | |
injuries, including head and internal injuries and broken bones. | |
Gao Gao Yu, who had been on the bus with her father, said some | |
passengers began climbing out of the windows to get out. She told | |
Spectrum News Rochester she had no shoes and there was glass | |
everywhere. | |
Yu said she saw “a guy who had a really bad cut on his head” who | |
“couldn’t move,” and a family of five, including a one-year-old | |
in a car seat, sitting behind the bus driver. | |
Glinski, who had been driving in his truck, said everyone behind him | |
started braking after the bus crashed. | |
“It was almost like you went in slow motion,” he said. | |
He pulled over and ran to help passengers who were thrown from the bus. | |
A nurse and several doctors who had been driving on the I-90 when the | |
bus jumped into action as well, he added. | |
“They came through very organized, they placed numbers and | |
color-coded cards down on the ground, and the medics attended those | |
people in accordance to the numbers that were placed out, and it was | |
totally calm,” Glinski said. | |
Glinski, 57, came across a young woman who had been traveling with her | |
parents and uncle. | |
“I looked at her arm, her arm was just a mess,” he said. | |
He took his Under Armour shirt off, and used it as a tourniquet, tying | |
it under the woman’s armpit as tight as he could. | |
Glinski said he waited with her until she was loaded into an ambulance | |
and taken to a hospital. | |
The Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, the only adult level-one | |
trauma center for Western New York, received 21 patients. On Sunday, an | |
official with the hospital said 11 people had been discharged, with | |
another expected to be released. All of their other patients have been | |
deemed medically stable. | |
Six victims were brought to the University of Rochester Medical Center | |
by air and ground ambulance, said hospital spokesperson Scott Hesel. | |
“Two are being treated for critical injuries and four are medically | |
stable, including one pediatric patient,” he said. | |
Kaleida Health said in a statement to it received 20 patients, | |
including four adults in good condition to Buffalo General Medical | |
Center, 11 adults and two children to Millard Fillmore Suburban | |
Hospital and three children – one in serious condition – to Oishei | |
Children’s Hospital. Most of the patients were in good or fair | |
condition and at least one of those adults has been discharged, the | |
health care network said. | |
Additional patients were taken to United Memorial Medical Center in | |
Batavia, according to state police. | |
Powell Stephens, who drove by the crash on his way home to Medina from | |
Buffalo, said the scene was heartbreaking. “There was a lot of people | |
embracing each other. It looked like people were breaking down,” | |
Stephens told CNN affiliate | |
People who saw the aftermath of the wreck said glass and people’s | |
belongings were scattered on the highway. | |
“We were lucky to survive,” Yu said. | |
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