A church leader is seeking prayers for those injured in Sunday’s bus crash on Interstate 81 while state police are trying to piece together why it happened.
Three people with critical but what’s believed to be non-life-threatening injuries were among those who remained hospitalized Monday, while about two-thirds of the 32 total on the bus had been released, officials said.
“We ask that you would continue to pray for each student and their families during this very difficult time,” David Ashcraft, senior pastor of Lives Changed By Christ Church in Lancaster County, said in a statement. “Specifically, we are asking God for the comfort and healing of each student along with wisdom and skill for the medical teams that care for them.”
Trooper Andrew Lynn, of the Frackville station, said Adam Wright, 37, of Lancaster, was driving a coach bus owned by Premier #1 Limousine of Middletown south on Interstate 81 around 2:35 p.m. when he went off the right side of the road and onto the shoulder, then through a grassy area at the Hegins exit ramp. The bus continued across both lanes of Route 25, crashing through a guardrail that divides the lanes, and about 50 yards into a wooded area before it stopped, still on its wheels.
Trooper David Beohm, public information officer for Troop L, Reading, said five of the 32 people on the bus were flown to trauma centers at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, or Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. The remaining passengers were taken to hospitals in Pottsville and Shamokin, he said.
Beohm said troopers are asking that anyone who may have witnessed the accident, or saw the bus possibly having trouble prior to the crash, call the Frackville station at 570-874-5300.
Beohm said the bus was the middle of three buses traveling together back to the Manheim campus of the LCBC. Freshman and sophomore girls and several adults were on board.
A church statement said that the bus was carrying 31 students and leaders and the driver, and that the buses were returning from a high school ministry retreat at Lake Champion, New York.
“I love our LCBC family, and families pull together in times of need,” Ashcraft’s statement reads. “And now is the time for our entire LCBC family to come together in prayer to support these girls and leaders and their families.”
He also asked “for peace and comfort for the families of each of the girls involved.”
Time, location helped
Beohm said the investigation will include determining if the vehicle had a “black box” recording device.
He said Wright was interviewed and that investigators will be looking into his driving record and the company’s safety record.
“We’re going to get it right,” Beohm said.
He said the National Transportation Safety Board is not involved.
The mass casualty incident “created quite a challenge for fire and EMS units in Schuylkill County,” he said.
It helped that the bus did not crash on the interstate, Matz said.
“We were able to have people working off of (Route) 25 instead of Interstate 81, which would have had severe safety concerns for our first responders,” he said.
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