LANCASTER, ONT. — Four people including a teenaged boy were taken to hospital with serious injuries Tuesday after a crash between a tractor-trailer and a double-decker bus en route from Montreal to Toronto, police said.
The injured teen had to be airlifted from the scene while paramedics and firefighters tended to many of the injured on site, provincial police Sgt. Kristine Rae said in an interview.
Nineteen people were taken to hospital with minor injuries. Those who were not hurt were shuttled to an arena in nearby Williamstown where new transportation was being arranged for them, police said.
About 45 passengers were on the Megabus travelling along Highway 401 at the time of the crash. Tweeted photos appeared to show the damaged bus pressed up against trees on the side of the highway. They also showed a tractor-trailer with a badly damaged back end.
Megabus had little to say about the crash.
“Megabus can confirm that one of our vehicles…was involved in an incident near Lancaster, Ont.,” Sean Hughes, director of corporate affairs for Megabus.com North America, said in an email to The Canadian Press.
“Safety is our No. 1 priority and Megabus is fully co-operating with the authorities with their investigation into the incident.”
Hughes would not elaborate but confirmed the bus was travelling to Toronto from Montreal.
Police refused to speculate on the cause of the crash but confirmed the front of the bus had been damaged.
Rae said there was “some confusion” initially about the number of people hurt _ with police tweeting at one point that four people had been airlifted to hospital and 15 had been injured.
The collision shut down a stretch of the westbound lanes of the 401, the main artery through the region, near Lancaster, east of Cornwall, Ont., for close to three hours.
Megabus.com, a subsidiary of Paramus, N.J.-based Coach USA, is one of the largest privately funded providers of city-to-city express bus transportation.