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31 Injured as NJ Transit Bus Rear-Ends Bus in Lincoln Tunnel, Officials Say

By  Trevor Kapp Gwynne Hogan and Aidan Gardiner | June 10, 2015 10:03am 

 Fire firefighters respond to the Lincoln Tunnel after two buses collided.
Fire firefighters respond to the Lincoln Tunnel after two buses collided.
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DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp

MANHATTAN — Thirty-one people were injured when a Manhattan-bound New Jersey Transit bus rear-ended a charter bus carrying more than 20 eighth graders in the Lincoln Tunnel Wednesday morning, officials and witnesses said.

The NJ Transit bus on Route 166, carrying fewer than 50 passengers hit a bus carrying the students on a graduation trip in the same lane near the Manhattan side of the tunnel about 9:30 a.m., officials and witnesses said.

Most of the damage seemed to be isolated to the NJ Transit bus while the other bus, operated by Ontario-based Denny Bus Lines, was relatively unscathed afterwards.

"I was sleeping at the time. I heard a sound. I crashed my nose into the chair in front of me," said NJ Transit passenger Won Kim, 42, a DUMBO computer programmer who lives in Leonia, N.J.

"The person in front of me, his nose was bleeding," Kim said.

Others about the NJ Transit bus suffered similar injuries and were heard shouting "My head!" "He's injured!" and "Oh my god!"

"The lady I was sitting next to, she was wearing glasses and she was reading when it happened," said Karen Edgar, a project manager who also lives in Leonia and has commuted for the past four years.

The crash cut the bridge of her reading neighbor's nose, she said.

"It kept gushing," Edgar said.

"There was a lot of blood. A lot of people were scared," said a 50-year-old NJ Transit rider who only gave his name as Victor.

The New Jersey Transit bus itself was also damaged in the crash.

"It smashed the front window. The window broke and the door broke. The front side of the bus smashed," Jae Hoon Chung, 41, a passenger on the NJ Transit bus, told DNAinfo New York.

"People were hurt, some people were bleeding. The driver stood up and asked if everyone was OK. Some of the people were crying. Everybody was conscious."

Emergency responders had to pry through the damaged NJ Transit bus to access the riders, witnesses said.

"They had to tear apart the door and cut some of it with a big cutter," Chung said.

"A cop came on and told us to raise our hand if we were injured."

Thirty-one people were treated at area hospitals, including Bellevue and Mount Sinai Roosevelt, for injuries that weren't considered life-threatening, an FDNY spokesman said.

Most of their injuries were to passengers necks and backs, according to FDNY Deputy Chief Stephen Lincke.

It was not immediately clear how many of those who were treated were from the NJ Transit bus.

Two pregnant woman in a separate bus were trapped in the tunnel when the crash snarled traffic.

One of them started feeling contractions and was taken to Mount Sinai Roosevelt hospital, Port Authority officials said.

The other refused medical attention, officials said.

The Canadian charter bus was carrying about 26 students from Toronto's Bedford Park Public School, all between the ages of 13 and 14, to a sightseeing tour in Manhattan, school officials said.

The principal, who was on board along with another school staffer, tweeted about the crash moments afterward.

School staffers said no one on their bus needed medical attention. Police asked them some questions, but eventually allowed them to leave on foot and continue the third day of their five-day trip to New York. They planned on visiting Rockefeller Center and Madison Square Garden.

Staff at Denny Bus Lines did not provide further information about the crash.

The crash delayed NJ Transit buses for up to 45 minutes, according to its social media account.

New Jersey Transit was cross honoring bus fares on its train lines, officials said.

Crews tried to move NJ Transit bus, but weren't immediately able to, officials said. The other bus was removed to 40th Street and Dyer Avenue.

Regular NJ Transit bus service is expected to resume in time for the evening commute.

"We don't anticipate this occurrence is going to impact the evening rush at all. It looks like it's all cleared up at this point," said PAPD Commanding Officer Richard Gutch.

Drivers said the crash snarled traffic and trapped them in the tunnel for up to 90 minutes.

"You couldn't do anything. There was no cell service, no radio signal. You didn't know what was going on," said a man as he drove from the tube.

"We just waited it out — about an hour, an hour and a half. It was claustrophobic. You couldn't move. You couldn't breathe."

With reporting by Sybile Penhirin