Driver in bus
accident collapsedPolice rule out speed and alcohol
but say medical problems
may have contributed
A tour bus carrying 40 Japanese visitors flipped onto its side Saturday night on the Likelike Highway after the driver collapsed at the steering wheel.
The 65-year-old driver was in critical condition at the Queen's Medical Center, and 27 passengers were also injured, two seriously, police said.
Police said that after the driver slumped over the steering wheel, a tour guide attempted to steer the 55-seat Polynesian Hospitality bus. However, the guide lost control of the bus, and it slammed into a median guardrail, climbed an embankment and flipped onto its side, according to police. The bus slid 150 feet before coming to a stop.
The bus was traveling southbound about 10:27 p.m. Saturday when the crash occurred just mauka of the intersection at Valley View Drive.
The passengers were able get out through two escape hatches in the roof of the bus, Honolulu fire Capt. Kenison Tejada said.
The driver, however, was trapped inside, his arm pinned under the bus. Firefighters freed the man by using the "jaws of life" to separate the bus from the roadway, Tejada said.
Rescue workers then removed the driver through the front window of the bus, he said.
"All of the people really helped each other," Tejada said. "They had to make their way through two really small hatches ... that wouldn't have been that easy to get in and out of. That was a really good thing."
Police said the driver may have suffered from medical problems and that alcohol and speed were not factors in the crash.
Police said most of the injured were taken to either Straub Clinic & Hospital or Kuakini Medical Center in good to serious condition.
Of the passengers taken to hospitals, Tejada said 12 were transported by ambulance, and the 15 less seriously injured were taken by city bus.
The remaining 13 uninjured passengers returned to their hotel in another Polynesian Hospitality bus, Tejada said.
Polynesian Hospitality officials did not return calls to the Star-Bulletin.
Star-Bulletin reporter Diana Leone and the Associated Press contributed to this report.