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Posted: Tuesday, 03 November 2009 3:05PM
No injuries after Pace bus driver passes out while driving
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OAK PARK, Ill. (STNG) -- A Pace bus driver apparently passed out behind the wheel Tuesday morning and ping-ponged between parked cars in west suburban Oak Park.
No one one was injured, but 12 vehicles, including the bus, were damaged. The bus came to rest after jumping the sidewalk in front of Calvary Memorial Church.
The accident took place at 11 a.m. on Lake Street near Forest Avenue, and both lanes of Lake Street were closed to traffic between Forest and Kenilworth avenues until after 12:30 p.m.
Maria Torres and her husband were talking a walk and witnessed the accident. A Pace bus was turning right, to head east on Lake Street, when the driver apparently passed out.
The couple heard a “boom,” and she turned to see the out-of-control bus speeding toward them.
“He just continued going and I told my husband, ‘Run!’” Torres said.
After having hit seven parked cars on the south side of Lake Street, the bus smashed into a parked truck on the north side before turning sharply south, hopping the curb, destroying a bush and hitting four more cars in the Calvary parking lot.
Had the truck not been parked there, the couple would have been hit, said Torres’ husband, Jose Chaparro.
“I think that truck saved our life,” he said.
The truck belonged to Jesse Howard, a Maywood resident, who had was in a nearby Starbucks.
“I came back and this had happened,” Howard said.
Even though his truck received significant front-end damage, Howard said he was lucky he wasn’t in it during the accident. He also expressed happiness the couple on the sidewalk wasn’t injured.
“They are blessed,” he said.
Oak Park Police Sgt. Dina Vardal said there was one passenger in the bus when the driver apparently passed out, shortly after turning onto Lake Street.
The driver, who Vardal didn’t name, was “walking and talking” after the accident, but was taken in an ambulance to a nearby hospital.
“There are going to be some traffic charges, depending on his medical condition,” she said.
The bus’ passenger was not injured, Vardal said.
The accident happened at a critical time -- the Calvary church preschool had let out just before the accident, but the children and their parents had already left the area, Vardal said.
Calvary was also hosting a “ladies Bible study group, which let out five minutes after the accident, so that was lucky,” said church worker Nathan Steinman.
Not so lucky was Steinman’s car, which was parked in the Calvary parking lot and one of those that stopped the bus’ motion. He was inside the church in a prayer group during the accident.
“It’s totaled,” Steinman said, pointing at his Ford Focus and pausing to consider the silver lining of the situation. “You know, we wanted a van, anyway.”
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Sun-Times Media Wire Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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