ATWATER, Calif. — Leonardo Sanchez was sleeping peacefully on a bus carrying him to Oregon to pick blueberries when he was suddenly thrown face first into the back of the seat in front of him, awakening him to a horrific scene of chaos and death.
The bus carrying Sanchez and about 30 others on a pre-dawn journey through California’s agricultural rich San Joaquin Valley had somehow plowed head-on into a highway pole that nearly sliced it in half. Five people died and at least 18 were hurt, including six listed in either serious or critical condition.
“There was lots of screaming and crying,” Sanchez told The Associated Press hours after Tuesday’s crash. He said only about eight people, including himself, escaped the bus largely unscathed.
“The rest of them, the police and ambulances arrived to get them out. And the dead,” he added solemnly in Spanish.
Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said rescuers pulled “bags of body parts” from the bus along with survivors. He said some victims were thrown from the vehicle and landed in a ditch.
The bus, operated by Autobuses Coordinados USA, was heading to Washington state. It was approaching Livingston, a farming and industrial town of about 13,000, where it had been scheduled to change drivers.
Apparently running late for its 1:30 a.m. driver switch, the bus veered off the highway shortly before 3:30 a.m. It was no more than a couple miles from its scheduled stop when the crash occurred.
The accident sliced the bus from front to back, with the vehicle coming to a stop when its first rear axle hit the pole. That was when Sanchez was violently tossed awake to discover a scene of chaos and carnage filled with the screams of trapped and injured people.
“We couldn’t pull people out because there was shattered glass everywhere, seats destroyed,” he said.