25, 2004
Police sorting out crash details
By Heather Yakin
and Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record
[email protected]
[email protected]
Liberty – More charges could be filed in the bus crash that injured 54 teenage girls, police said yesterday.
State police in Liberty are awaiting the findings from their own investigators and from a state Department of Transportation bus inspector before making the final determination.
They need the mechanical inspection to figure out just why the commercial bus careened down the steep hill at the bottom of the Ferndale-Loomis Road and plunged into the Middle Mongaup River early Sunday morning.
Police put the number of injured at 49, but hospital and EMS personnel had a total of 54 patients.
The bus was owned by Brooklyn-based Excellent Bus Service Inc. The driver, Joel Fisher, 23, of Brooklyn, was issued a ticket charging speed not reasonable and prudent. Investigator Richard Mazzone said Fisher was properly licensed to drive the bus. Police are investigating Fisher's level of experience.
A woman who answered the phone at the Orthodox Jewish girls' school, Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley, said all of the girls are recovering from their ordeal.
The entire school, close to 400 girls age 14 to 17, went up to Sullivan County for an annual retreat. Teachers also went on the retreat, which is meant as a bonding experience for the students and school. The school's principal didn't return a message asking for more information.
A bus accident is a camp owner's greatest fear, says Meir Frischman, who owns Camp Agudah, minutes away from the intersection of the bus accident. Their buses often use Ferndale-Loomis Road.
"We live with that everyday," says Frischman who is also the director of the Association of Jewish Camp Operators in Sullivan County.
And, he added, it's an accident that might have been avoided if another bus company had been used.
"Price-wise, they use them because they're cheaper," says Frischman. "I don't know any large camp that uses this company."
Frischman says he and the 75 to 80 Orthodox Jewish camps in the county use big companies like Coach USA.
"Better buses, more experienced drivers," he said, adding that renting a bus for the trip from Brooklyn to Sullivan County costs $675.
Frischman said newer buses, a year or two old, hold 57 passengers. Older buses hold no more than 49.
It's not yet clear what the capacity of the bus involved in the crash was – or whose bus, exactly, it was.
Police said the bus was registered to Excellent Bus Service of Brooklyn. The company is also listed in Monroe. The bus itself bore the name of Netzach Transportation, a company based in Kiryas Joel in Orange County.
Both Excellent and Netzach declined comment when reached by phone yesterday.
Orange County Planning Commissioner David Church said the two companies routinely lease each other's buses. Netzach likely leased the bus from Excellent, with a long-enough lease that Netzach could put its insignia on the side.
Meanwhile, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is dealing with roughly 100 gallons of diesel fuel that spilled from the bus' tank into the Middle Mongaup.
DEC regional spokeswoman Wendy Rosenbach said the DEC has hired Tri-State Environmental of Hawthorne for the cleanup. They'll use absorbents and set up booms to skim the fuel off the water in the river, to minimize damage to plant and animal life.
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