7 Injured After MTA Bus Crashes Into Shelter Near Mondawmin Mall
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- An out-of-control bus plows into a group of people waiting at a bus stop in Northwest Baltimore. Now, investigators want to know how it happened.
Rochelle Ritchie has more on the accident and investigation.
A preliminary investigation by the MTA indicates that this accident may have been the driver's fault. It happened at Mondawmin Transit Center on Liberty and Reisterstown Roads near Mondawmin Mall.
View Slideshow: MTA Bus Crashes Near Mondawmin Mall
The location of the accident is often heavily populated with people waiting for transfers to other buses. But several people waiting at the bus shelter Thursday morning were instead transported by ambulance to the hospital.
"Everything was just chaos. People were waiting for the buses. It was ridiculous up here," Paulette Snowden, a bus rider, said.
The bus drifted across the bus loop and struck the shelter, injuring seven people. Those injuries are non-life threatening.
No passengers were on the bus at the time of the crash.
All the injuries happened to people standing outside-- an unsettling feeling for many.
"Yeah, I could have been hurt. I could be on my way to work. I'm glad I wasn't," William Malone, a bus rider, said.
"It could have been anybody, to be honest," said another bus rider.
The mangled bus shelter was pulled from its foundation to make room for a new one.
The bus has cameras on the outside and inside which will help investigators determine why the bus took off.
"We''ll have a number of different vantage points to determine what happened here," Terri Owens, MTA spokesperson, said.
Victims were taken to various hospitals with neck and back injuries but have since been treated and released.
The driver had just relieved another operator. She was doing safety checks when the accident happened.
The bus driver has been taken to a local facility where she was drug and alcohol tested, which is routine.
