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Buses slide on ice, teeter over I-5 in Seattle

05:44 PM PST on Friday, December 19, 2008

By TERESA BLACKMAN, kgw.com Staff

SEATTLE -- Two large charter buses slid down an icy side street and straight for Interstate-5 in Seattle Friday afternoon, finally coming to a precarious rest hanging over the edge of the road, over the freeway.

Aerials of bus accident

Seattle police said some of the passengers suffered minor injuries. They were students, 16-24 in age, coming from the Columbia Basin Job Corps near Moses Lake and heading to Seattle for Christmas break.

“Everybody was just screaming, crying. Everybody had to climb out the emergency windows," passenger Nicole Maxie said.

About 75 people were on both buses and the Seattle Fire Department said 11 people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. At least one person could be seen taken away on a stretcher.

KGW's aerial helicopter view showed one of the buses had its front tires hanging over the edge of a freeway wall several feet over I-5. The other bus was at an angle, but only the front left bumper was hanging over the edge.

“We were going down the hill and the hill was very icy and the driver tried to turn and we ran into the other bus and it knocked it into the guardrails and the windows in our bus just shattered,” Maxie explained.

 Slideshow: Photos of bus accident

The buses were stabilized and two northbound lanes of the freeway were closed as a precaution until they could be safely towed away. Some debris did fall onto I-5 when the bus crashed into the guardrail.

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