BALTIMORE — A MTA bus slammed into the first floor of an apartment building Saturday morning in a multi-vehicle crash involving two other cars that injured 17 people.
The bus was carrying passengers on the edge of downtown and the Seton Hill neighborhood when it collided with a black Lexus on North Paca Street, according to Baltimore Police.
The bus also struck a Nissan before coming to a stop in The 501, an apartment building on the corner of North Paca and West Franklin streets.
Baltimore City Fire Department inspectors briefly evacuated the first floor of the building.
“Firefighters learned that the steel beams horizontal and vertical remained intact, so they just condemned the first floor. We dispatched multiple medic units, our special rescue operations, our heavy rescue team, they were able to determine that the building is not as compromised as initially feared,” Baltimore City Fire Department Spokesperson Kevin Cartwright said at the scene.
Of the 17 people injured, including drivers of the bus and cars, Cartwright said, “Not one was life threatening. Not one. They were all categorized as priority two and priority three patients. Level one would be critical.”
University of Maryland Medical System Spokesperson Michael Schwartzberg said it received 12 patients from the incident, including five taken to Shock Trauma, all with non-life-threatening injuries.
At the scene, the air bag deployed in a black Lexus smashed into a traffic light pole at the intersection of West Mulberry and North Paca streets, about half a block down from the bus. Witnesses said the Lexus was speeding and ran the light on North Paca when it struck the bus and then the pole.
“There were bystander, spectator reports that there were vehicles speeding through this and the MTA bus, in an effort to avoid being a part of that, collided into this building,” Cartwright said.
Renee Bunch was stopped at the red light on North Paca and West Franklin with her mother, LaTanya Bunch, and infant daughter when she says the bus crashed into the building to avoid hitting more cars.
”This bus driver here saved a lot of lives. We were at the light, and he went into the building. If he wouldn’t have went into the building he would have smashed into all of us. We were the third car down,” Bunch said.
”The black car ran the light,” Bunch said of the Lexus. “It’s not the bus driver’s fault. For him to make the decision, risk his own life to save all of us. It looked like he was hurt badly. They stitched his leg up, but he was talking to them.”
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(Baltimore Sun photojournalist Kim Hairston contributed to this report.)
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