Boy, 6, and his sister among seven dead after bus veers off road & overturns in Mississippi leaving dozens injured

SEVEN people, including a pair of siblings, are dead after a passenger bus crashed and overturned early Saturday morning.

The deadly crash, which left dozens injured, occurred just after midnight outside Vicksburg, Mississippi .

WAPT

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According to the Mississippi Highway Patrol, all seven of the dead passengers were killed as a result of blunt-force trauma.

Five passengers, including a 6-year-old boy, were pronounced dead at the scene.

One additional passenger, the boy’s 16-year-old sister, was transported to a nearby hospital, where she died shortly after arrival.

An 8-year-old was also among those killed in the crash.

Thirty-seven passengers were transported to hospitals in Vicksburg and Jackson with unknown injuries.

“Anytime you have people injured or killed, it’s tragic but when you have a situation like this where you have multiple fatalities and multiple injuries, it makes it even worse,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace told local ABC affiliate WAPT .

Pace revealed that the number of deaths and injuries was especially high because of the way the bus crashed.

“Multiple injuries and multiple fatalities … it just compounds the tragedy,” Sheriff Pace added.

A tow truck driver, Keith Allison, also told WAPT reporters that once the bus rolled over to a ditch on the side of the road, he saw many passengers ejected from the bus.

Some passengers, meanwhile, were left trapped inside the charter.

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The Mississippi Highway Patrol has opened up an investigation to learn what caused the crash.

Vicksburg News has reported that the crash may have been caused by a tire blowout accident.

The bus left the main road and overturned on a stretch of Interstate 20.

The crash occurred about 40 miles west of Jackson.

Witness Account

Vicksburg News reported that Warren County resident Megan Gonzalez was one of the first people to arrive at the scene of the crash.

“People were trapped in the bus and trying to get out,” Gonzalez said.

“One young couple was somehow out and walking around,” she added.

“But I was trying to let the people who were trapped know help was on the way.”

Gonzalez also mentioned that many passengers on the bus were from Mexico and/or spoke Spanish.

She was able to assist them at the scene in their native language for several hours.

“The driver was very upset that he couldn’t control the bus and felt responsible for the accident,” Gonzalez said.

“He kept blaming himself and didn’t understand why he wasn’t able to keep the bus on the road after the tire blew out.”

The driver reportedly suffered a shoulder injury from the crash.

He notably refused medical treatment until all passengers were out of the bus and boarded onto ambulances.

The charter bus belongs to Autobuses Regiomontanos, the company’s spokesperson Miranda Fernandez told CNN , and photos show the company’s logo on the side of the bus.

The company, based in Monterrey, Mexico , transports passengers between Mexico and the United States .

Autobuses Regiomontanos did not confirm where the bus departed from, but did say it was on its way to Mexico.

It had picked up several passengers from different locations in the US, including one couple from Atlanta , Georgia.

A complete passenger roster hasn’t been made public, though 47 individuals were reportedly on board.

Doug Huskey, the Warren County coroner, confirmed that an unnamed survivor of the crash called 911 at around 12:25 am local time.

Law enforcement agencies were forced to shut down a portion of the interstate overnight, but the lanes have since reopened.

The U.S. Sun has reached out to the Warren County Fire and EMS Services Department for comment.

WAPT

WAPT

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