One killed, scores injured in bus crash

PLEASANT VIEW, Tennessee (CNN) -- A Greyhound bus headed from Kansas City, Missouri, to Nashville, Tennessee, overturned on a highway northwest of its destination Sunday morning. At least one passenger was killed and another 44 were injured.

The bus was eastbound in the right-hand lane of Interstate 24 when it drifted left into the soft grass median, said Dana Keaton, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Safety.

The driver jerked the wheel to the right and the bus overturned, ending up on its left side on the grass to the right of the highway, Keaton said.

Keaton said authorities have not determined what caused the bus to drift. Responding to reports that passengers said the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, Greyhound spokeswoman Kristin Parsley said, "That's speculation. We're working with the police to find out what went wrong."

Keaton said she could not confirm the report because authorities had not spoken with the driver. The St. Louis-based driver was not seriously injured. Keaton said it did rain lightly in the Nashville area Sunday morning, but she was uncertain about the road conditions at the time of the crash.

The injured were taken to eight Tennessee hospitals: Centennial in Ashland City; Gateway Health Systems/Clarksville Memorial in Clarksville; Metropolitan General, Skyline, St. Thomas, Vanderbilt and Baptist in Nashville; and Northcrest in Springfield.

Parsley said there were 48 people on board, including the driver. She said the bus left Kansas City at 5:55 Saturday afternoon and was scheduled to reach Nashville at 7:30 Sunday morning. A new driver took over in St. Louis at 12:15 Sunday morning for a seven-hour shift. The accident was reported to the Robertson County Sheriff's Department at 7:20 a.m.

Parsley said the typical shift for a Greyhound driver is about nine hours, with a maximum of 9.5 hours on the road and nine hours of rest required between shifts. She compared that to U.S. Department of Transportation limits of 10 hours of driving time and only eight hours of required rest.

Fifteen paramedics based at Fort Campbell were stuck in traffic behind the accident and were able to help the injured. The crash is under investigation.

Managers and adjusters from Greyhound met with victims leaving area hospitals Sunday afternoon to assess their individual situations, Parsley said.

The company would pay for some victims to spend the night in hotels, she said, depending on the severity of the injury and their ability to contact loved ones.

This is the first time a passenger has died as a result of a Greyhound bus accident in more than a year, Parsley said.

A driver died in an crash July 3 in Glendale, Nevada. The autopsy in that case is not complete, so Greyhound is not sure whether the death was related to his health or to the accident.

People concerned that family or friends may have been on the bus can call Greyhound's emergency operations center at 800 972-4583.