CHURUBUSCO, IN : 1 dead in bus-SUV crash on Thursday, December 22nd 2016

One man died and 16 people were injured when a sport utility vehicle collided head-on with a commercial bus with 40 passengers north of Churubusco on Thursday.

The Whitley County Sheriff’s Department said the bus, owned by Barons Bus and driven by Berl Shaw, 57, of Galloway, Ohio, was traveling from Chicago to Columbus, Ohio, and was southbound on U.S. 33.

The SUV, driven by Edward M. Dahm, 86, of Fort Wayne, was northbound when, according to witnesses, it suddenly sped up, went left of center and collided with the bus head-on near Blue Lake Road just after 11 a.m.

Whitley County Sheriff Marcus Gatton said skid marks showed the driver of the bus tried to brake and get over as far as possible but couldn’t avoid the crash. He added that the bus did have dashboard cameras that recorded what happened.

The SUV was knocked backward into a field on the east side of the road. The bus ended up in a ditch on the west side of the road.

Dahm, the driver of the SUV, and his dog were killed in the crash, police said. Dahm was co-founder of Mike’s Car Wash.

Dahm and his brother, Joe, founded the company in 1948 in Fort Wayne, opening “Mike’s Minit Man,” Indiana’s first automated car wash. At the time, just 18 automated car washes operated in the United States.

The car wash is known not only for its state-of-the art car washing technology and friendly customer service but also widely known for the stuffed animals that greet customers at the wash entrance. Mike’s Car Wash split into two companies in 2014.

Churubusco fire Chief Kris Bair said he came upon the scene as he was traveling.

“I rolled up before the dispatch call even came in,” Bair said. “When I got here, people were hanging out of the windows. I had to help get people out from the front windows.”

“I’ve been on the fire department 27 years,” Bair said. “This is the biggest one we’ve had, patient-wise.”

Bair said Smith-Green Community Schools buses were called to move the passengers.

That took about an hour, during which time the injured and uninjured were separated, he said.

He said he overheard one passenger on the phone saying they were standing along the highway and it was getting cold, “And I thought, we need more blankets.”

Fortunately the weather was mild and the buses were close.

“If it had been single-digit temperatures out here while this was going on, it would have sent it into another magnitude of getting people out of the elements,” Bair said.

Gatton said the bus driver was alert and talking and was flown by helicopter to a hospital as a precaution. A police report said he suffered a broken leg.

Sixteen passengers, described as “walking wounded,” were taken to area hospitals, rescue officials said. None were reported to have critical injuries.

In all, eight ambulances from three counties responded to the crash.

The passengers were waiting for another bus from Columbus to pick them up, police said.

Based in Cleveland, Barons Bus Inc. has a satisfactory rating with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation website.

U.S. 33 was closed for several hours near Blue Lake Road and to southbound traffic south of Indiana 9 in Noble County.

Mike Feely of the Huntington Fire Department said the local McDonald’s donated hamburgers, a local grocery donated bottled water and the local school superintendent had box lunches prepared for the stranded passengers.

Source :
1 dead in bus-SUV crash