By Benjamin Fractenberg and Michael Ventura
DNAinfo Staff
KIPS BAY — Janet Rivera injured her back when the bus she was riding in collided with two others and a motorcycle early Thursday morning.
But the screams of the motorcycle driver trapped under her bus will likely bother her far longer.
"He was in a lot of pain," Rivera, 45, told DNAinfo after she was released from Bellevue Hospital Thursday afternoon. "He was screaming. That will stay with me for a while."
Rivera's bus was involved in a four-vehicle accident involving three buses and a motorcycle that closed a tube of the Lincoln Tunnel and injured 52 people. Thirteen people suffered serious injuries and were taken to Roosevelt Hospital, according to the FDNY.
Rivera's remembered her bus hitting another and then feeling the vehicle elevate.
"The motorcycle went under our bus," she said. The rider was pinned under the bus and had to be freed by NYPD emergency personnel.
"Everyone had a stunned, shocked look on their face" when it was over Rivera said. She heard emergency responders say the motorcyclist was doing OK and saw them bring him out from under the bus.
The motorcycle driver was identified as Keith Nystrom, 46, of Wayne, NJ, according to published reports. Nystrom was allegedly seen on surveillance camera weaving between vehicles prior to the crash, the Post reported. Nystrom was wearing a helmet, according to the paper. He remains in critical condition at Bellevue Hospital, the Post reported.
Robert Seaton, 47, said he was sleeping on the same bus when the accident occurred at roughly 7:30 a.m.
"I was woken up completely by the accident," he said outside the hospital. "Then I passed out again."
His nose was broken, Seaton said, and he remembered other passengers suffering cuts and bruises.
"Everyone was bleeding," he said. "Blood from their mouth, from their nose, from their eyes."
Alicia Stewart told DNAinfo her mother-in-law, Irene Stewart, was on one of the buses.
"She thought it was an explosion," Stewart said. "She's shaken up."
