Submitted by Fox First at Ten on December 31st
UPDATE: A survivor of a deadly bus crash in Eastern Oregon says she and several other passengers were ejected after the tour bus smashed through a guardrail and plummeted down an embankment Twenty-two-year-old Berlyn Sanderson of Canada says windows on the bus broke as it careened down the embankment, and she and a number of others were thrown out. She says the bus began skidding on ice before it hit the guardrail on Interstate 84 and plummeted 100 feet down an embankment. Sunday's crash killed nine people and sent more than 30 others to hospitals. It occurred on a section of I-84 that is notorious for its icy conditions during the winter. The bus was returning to British Columbia from a trip to Las Vegas. Some of the passengers were exchange students from South Korea.
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PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) - A federal agency has sent two investigators to the site of an Eastern Oregon tour bus crash that killed nine people. The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday it would look into the conditions on Interstate 84 and the guardrail the tour bus crashed through Sunday morning. It also will examine the operations of the Vancouver, British Columbia, bus carrier. The agency says the 1998-model bus rolled at least once when it wrecked on a long descent known for dangerous winter driving conditions. More than 40 people were aboard the bus traveling from Las Vegas to Vancouver. On Monday, 14 remained at a hospital in nearby Pendleton. Sixteen had been sent to other hospitals. A passenger tells The Oregonian (http://bit.ly/YGv1Wd ) the bus was carrying mostly exchange students from South Korea.
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UPDATE: Oregon State Police have released the names of the two men involved in another fatal crash on Interstate 84 in Oregon on Sunday morning. A 69-year-old man from Post Falls, Idaho, was pronounced dead at the scene of the single vehicle crash east of Stanfield. Police say 26-year-old Timothy Hancock was driving a pickup near milepost 192 when he lost control of the vehicle on an icy section of Interstate-84. The pickup rolled over in the center median before coming to rest upside down. The pickup's passenger, 69-year-old Freeman Glenn Thomason, was killed. Hancock was taken by ambulance to Good Shepherd Hospital in Hermiston with non-life threatening injuries.
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PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) - Oregon State Police say the weekend tour bus crash that killed nine people happened near a treacherous eastern Oregon section of road known as Deadman Pass. Lt. Greg Hastings says the bus crashed along the west end of the Blue Mountains on Sunday after careening off an icy Interstate 84 and down a steep embankment. More than 20 people were injured. The crash site is west of Deadman Pass, an area so dangerous the state transportation department published specific warnings for truck drivers. The state advises the area has "some of the most changeable and severe weather conditions in the Northwest" and can lead to slick conditions and poor visibility. State police said the bus was en route from Las Vegas to Vancouver.(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
