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Crash Involving Bus, Truck, Pickup Hurts 1

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By LISA A. DAVIS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2008

HUDSON - HUDSON - A couple of passengers had just stepped off a county bus at the stop north of Denton Avenue when a flatbed truck slammed into the back of the bus about noon Tuesday.

The bus rocked, passengers said, but none of the seven riders was injured. Soon they realized they were just one part of the crash.

The bus was stopped in front of a business, From Dusk Til Dawn, 16034 U.S. 19, but the driver of the Isuzu flatbed truck didn't realize the bus had stopped, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jim Johnson said.

"The flatbed truck tried to avoid the bus, and the other truck hit him," he said.

The other truck was a quad cab Ford F-350 towing a large speedboat. The Ford struck the Isuzu, sending it spiraling, and smashing the driver's side of the Ford's front end, Johnson said.

Bus driver Gerry Grasso glanced at his side mirror as two passengers were getting off the bus. He saw the flatbed quickly approaching and he knew trouble was coming. Then he saw the pickup.

"The guy with the boat had no chance of slowing down; he was moving too fast," Grasso said.

Then he heard a crash, and then another, and the bus shook.

When riders on the bus realized what happened, passenger Tina Rand, 38, of Hudson, stepped outside and saw the damage to the pickup, which was stuck in a ditch. She ran to the Ford, where she saw that the driver was unconscious and smoke was filling the cab.

"He was totally slumped over," Rand said. "I yelled at him to wake up."

He didn't move. The air bags appeared to have deployed, and the pickup's horn was blaring.

"The whole truck was just full of smoke," Rand said.

A second bus rider, Cheryl Beauchamp, 31, also of Hudson, was concerned about the smoke.

"I thought it was going to blow up," she said. "So if he was unconscious, I wanted to make sure he got out."

That's when she noticed a window open in the back of the truck; she climbed in the cab, cutting her left leg slightly. She removed the seat belt from the man and unlocked the doors.

Another man, whose name wasn't known, also tried to assist.

As it turned out, the truck wasn't on fire.

The pickup's driver, whose name wasn't released, was flown by medical helicopter to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg. His condition wasn't known Tuesday afternoon.

None of the seven bus passengers was hurt, Grasso, the driver, said. But the bus's engine, which sits in the rear, will need repairs.

Grasso said he has been involved in 11 crashes as a Pasco bus driver. Most have been drivers slamming into the rear of the bus.

"We can't imagine how they don't see these lights flashing," he said of the lights that alert motorists to a stopped bus. "We're just lucky no one on the bus was hurt."

Troopers were investigating the crash Tuesday afternoon.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083 or ldavis@tampatrib.com.

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