FDNY officials reported that the crash, which took place outside the community office of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection at 3660 Jerome Avenue, happened at 11:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 29. Following the incident, police shut down Jerome Avenue between East 213th Street and Bainbridge Avenue, as NYPD detectives were joined by investigators from the NYC Department of Transportation and officials from Liberty Lines which runs the Bee-Line bus service.

 

On Sunday, Aug. 1, Detective Denise Moroney, an NYPD spokeswoman, told the Norwood News, “Police responded to a 911 call of a motor vehicle collision.”

Moroney said after a preliminary investigation was carried out, it was determined that a black Chevrolet Equinox, driven by an unidentified, 20-year-old man, was traveling southbound on Jerome Avenue, when the driver attempted to change lanes and collided with a silver Toyota Rav 4.

 

The Toyota was driven by a 50-year-old man. After the initial impact, the Toyota Rav 4 veered into the northbound lane of traffic and collided with the Westchester-bound, Bee-Line bus that was driven by a 57-year-old man. The front of the bus then struck the steel pillar that supports the elevated number 4 train line.

 

Moroney said 12 bus passengers were transported to area hospitals with “non-life-threatening injuries.” However, she added that one bus passenger, a 69-year-old man, “sustained severe trauma to the head.” The victim was transported to Jacobi Hospital, where the individual was initially listed in critical condition.

 

Norwood News reached out to Jacobi for an update on the man’s condition. We did not receive an immediate response. Moroney said that both drivers of the two SUVs had remained at the scene.

 

Minutes after the crash occurred, Citizen App users began broadcasting live footage of the aftermath, including accompanying police band audio transmissions. One officer was heard reporting to his dispatch, “Affirmative. The bus hit the column… We’ve got multiple aided on the bus.”

 

In a Citizen App video, an unidentified female commuter who said she used the Bee-Line bus service, recounted missing the bus in question just minutes earlier at the Bedford Park Boulevard and Jerome Avenue stop, saying, “I just missed this bus… As my cab is pulling up, this bus was leaving, so I waited for the next bus.” Later, as she took in the images of the heavily damaged bus from the safety of a sidewalk, the startled woman added, “I don’t understand how this happened.”

 

A second Citizen App video posted by “red725us” showed the bus driver speaking to a local news reporter about the events leading up to the collision. Referring to his passengers, he said, “They know…they saw what happened.” He then asked some of the passengers, “Were you guys in the back when the guys hit the bus? Did you see when those two idiots hit the bus…when the cars hit the bus?”

 

The bus driver who, at this point, was sitting on the curb and wearing a neck brace added, “Because, when they hit it, I was already against the pillar. I don’t even know what the [expletive] happened.”

 

Norwood News arrived at the scene of the crash as an NYPD Highway Patrol officer was interviewing the 20-year-old driver of the black Equinox. He had the young man walk a straight line as part of a sobriety test.

 

Meanwhile, recalling the accident, Michael, a resident of Norwood, said, “I was on the 4 train, and I came down and saw a crowd and the front of the bus was really torn up.”

 

Several, local television news outlets later aired surveillance video footage that captured the crash. The video showed the Equinox driver attempting to move from the outside lane into the inside lane, when it collided with the Rav 4, which then struck the bus.

 

Sadly, March 12, 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of another bus crash, which involved a tour bus that had been chartered to take passengers to and from Chinatown in Manhattan to a Connecticut casino. The bus crashed while traveling back to Manhattan on the New England Thruway, near Connor Street in Co-Op City, killing 15 and injuring more than a dozen.

 

Meanwhile, as reported by CBS Local and other local news outlets, dramatic video footage from the scene of another bus crash on January 14 in Highbridge was broadcast, when an articulated MTA bus smashed through a concrete highway barrier and remained dangling over the Cross Bronx Expressway access road, with seven passengers and the driver trapped inside.

 

The front section of the bus later dropped about 50 feet onto the expressway access road. All eight were reportedly injured, one seriously, following that crash.

 

Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or on Twitter @NYPDTips.

 

All calls are strictly confidential.

 

 

Editor’s Note: The headline of an earlier version of this story stated that 15 people were injured. In fact, a total of 14 people were injured (one critically). We apologize for this error.