Report: Bus crash north of Dallas kills 12

[August 08, 2008]  DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- A charter bus ran off a highway overpass north of Dallas early Friday and crashed onto its side on a roadway below, authorities said. A newspaper reported 12 were killed.

"We have confirmed fatalities," said Sherman police Lt. Robert Fair.

The Herald Democrat reported a dozen people were dead. The newspaper said the charter bus, which was headed to Missouri from Houston with 55 people onboard, came to a rest on its right side in the northbound lane of an access road below U.S. 75.

The accident happened at 12:45 a.m. Friday, Fair said. Scores of injured were being rushed to Sherman and Dallas hospitals via helicopter ambulances.

A spokeswoman at Wilson N. Jones Medical Center in Sherman said it was treating 17 patients.

Fair said the bus possibly "blew a tire."

Northbound traffic on the highway was shut down as ambulances and helicopters used the roadway and median to ferry the injured to hospitals. The newspaper said many of the victims were Vietnamese and that at least four translators were brought to the scene.

The accident happened less than a mile from the spot where a trucker crossed the median and killed 10 people five years ago.

Sherman is about 65 miles north of Dallas.

[Associated Press; By REGINA L. BURNS]

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