BYHALIA, Mississippi—A Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman says two people are dead and 44 others have been injured aboard a tour bus that overturned on an icy highway on Nov. 14 in the northern part of the state near Memphis.
Sgt. Joey Miller with Troop E of the Mississippi Highway Patrol says in a statement that the bus was carrying 46 people in all and that the crash was “weather-related.”
The county coroner, Josh Pounders, says two people are confirmed dead in the crash where Interstate 269 meets with Interstate 22.
Spokeswoman Ayoka Pond says 19 passengers were transported from the crash site near Byhalia to Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto in Southaven, Mississippi, and three there are in serious condition. She says seven other patients were taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Collierville in that Tennessee suburb of Memphis.
The Crash
The statement emailed to The Associated Press says the bus was southbound on Interstate 269 in Mississippi’s Desoto County — headed from Huntsville, Alabama, to Tunica, Mississippi — when it crashed at 12:35 p.m.The crash came as a pre-winter storm dropped sleet and light snow on parts of the South.
After the crash, a tow truck was hooked up to the tour bus that overturned on an icy route southeast of Memphis in a pre-winter storm.
An Associated Press reporter says the red tour bus with white and gray stripes has most of its windows missing and that an odor of gasoline still hung on the air hours after Wednesday’s crash. The bus had suffered damage including large scratches on the driver’s side of the vehicle.
Workers also are clearing the highway of debris and some of the crashed-out windows could be seen resting on the median.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation reports that Interstate 269 is closed in both directions at the interchange. Though eastbound traffic had resumed by noon on Nov. 14.
