Wednesday October 3 2:09 PM ET

Bus Deaths After Attack Cause Jitters in U.S.

MANCHESTER, Tenn. (Reuters) - Ten passengers were killed in a Greyhound bus crash on Wednesday after a man slit the driver's throat and sent the vehicle careening off a Tennessee highway, witnesses said.

The incident, just three weeks after the attacks on New York and Washington, sparked the suspension for several hours of Greyhound's services across a still jittery United States.

Greyhound Lines, which provided the death toll, suspended service as a precaution, then announced the system was safe and that it had resumed operations. Greyhound carries about 25 million passengers a year as the last remaining nationwide bus service.

Both the U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites) and the U.S. Department of Transportation said initial indications were that the incident was not related to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Greyhound, the largest provider of intercity bus service in the United States, suspended travel for one day after those attacks.

A doctor who treated the bus driver for cuts on his neck said the driver told him the assailant had asked repeated questions about the bus' route and then suddenly attacked him with either a razor or a box cutter.

The man, who the driver described as speaking English with a foreign accent, grabbed the steering wheel and sent the bus veering toward oncoming lanes and it flipped several times, Dr. Ralph Bard of Manchester Hospital said.

The bleeding driver managed to climb out of the overturned bus and was in good condition. The doctor quoted the driver as saying ``the suspect never acted threatening until the actual attack,'' after boarding the bus in Louisville, Kentucky.

A woman passenger riding in the front seat told a local television station that the man in his early 30s had been acting strangely, repeatedly asking her what time it was. She said he had asked for her seat but she refused.

The assailant was among the dead, and the local medical examiner said he was carrying a Croatian passport, the doctor said. A Justice Department official confirmed the man had a Croatian passport.

RANDOM INCIDENT

The crash appears to have been ``a random incident not related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,'' said Dave Longo, a spokesperson for the Federal Motorcarrier Administration, a division of the U.S. Transportation Department.

Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden said ``at this time we don't believe it was terrorist related.''

The FBI (news - web sites) said it had sent a team to investigate.

Greyhound President Craig Lentzch sought to reassure passengers and said those traveling on Wednesday could use their tickets on Amtrak passenger trains where space was available if they wished.

``Our operations are safe and are now up and running,'' Lentzch said. ``(The crash was) the result of an isolated act by a single, deranged individual,'' according to what he had been told by federal investigators.

Lentzch said a few of its bus stations had begun electronic searches and hand searches of luggage would be expanded.

The incident occurred on a bus bound for Orlando, Florida, from Chicago along Interstate highway 24 about 60 miles southeast of Nashville. There were 38 passengers on board and the injured were taken to local hospitals.

The service suspension stranded passengers from coast to coast at a time when the suicide airline hijackings had driven many passenger to alternative means of transportation, such as the bus and train.

``I'm scared and worried because I'm now trying to figure out again which way is the best to travel. I took the bus because I didn't want to fly after what happened,'' said George Garecht, a 30-year-old from Chicago stuck in Atlanta's bus terminal.

But Masa Yoshima, of Osaka, Japan, who has been touring the United States on Greyhound buses for two weeks, said being stuck in Miami would not deter him.

``I will have to take out my city map and see some more sites in Miami,'' said Yoshima, vowing to continue his bus tour of America.

Greyhound Lines is a subsidiary of Laidlaw Inc., a company which has been in bankruptcy proceedings.

-- (here@they.come), October 03, 2001

Answers

First airplanes, now busses. I predict trains will be next.

This means we are going to have to start going through strip searches before boarding ANY kind of mass transportation.

-- (man@this.sucks), October 03, 2001.

Wednesday October 3 1:30 PM ET

Greyhound Halts Service After Crash

MANCHESTER, Tenn. (AP) - A passenger on a Greyhound bus cut the driver's throat Wednesday, causing a crash that killed at least six of the 40 people aboard and prompted Greyhound to temporarily halt service nationwide. The driver told authorities the attacker used a box cutter.

The driver was treated for a cut to his neck and was stable after surgery, a hospital official said. The attacker, who had a Croatian passport, was killed, the FBI said.

``He just went up to the bus driver and, like, slit his throat, and the driver turned the wheel and the bus tipped over,'' passenger Carly Rinearson told Nashville TV station WTVF by cell phone from the crash site.

The crash happened on Interstate 24 near Manchester, 50 miles southeast of Nashville. The bus originated in Chicago with a final destination of Orlando, Fla., Greyhound spokesman Mike Lake said.

There were conflicting reports about how many people had died. In a statement, Lynn Brown, Greyhound's vice president for corporate communications, said police had confirmed 10 fatalities.

But Dana Keeton, a Tennessee Department of Safety spokeswoman, said six were confirmed dead at the scene, and the 34 other people on board were injured. She said the injured were taken to at least six hospitals. Hospital officials described the injuries as ranging from bumps and bruises to some that required emergency surgery.

After the 5:15 a.m. EDT crash, Greyhound pulled 1,900 buses off the nation's highways, but after consulting with federal and state investigators and transportation officials, the company decided it was safe to resume service as of 1 p.m. EDT.

``These officials have told us they believe that this morning's accident in Tennessee was as the result of a single deranged individual,'' Greyhound said in a statement.

Earlier, U.S. Justice Department officials said they did not believe the attack was terrorist-related, but that the investigation was continuing.

Coffee County Medical Examiner Dr. Al Brandon said the driver told him the attacker had boarded the bus in Kentucky. He said the man, who had been polite and spoke with a foreign accent, got up several times to ask him where the bus was headed, Brandon said.

The driver, whose name was not immediately released, told Brandon the passenger then ``accosted'' him with a box cutter.

However, Brandon said he couldn't confirm the weapon was a box cutter, saying it was a ``sharp instrument similar to a razor blade.'' The terrorists who hijacked four airliners on Sept. 11 reportedly used box cutters in their suicide attacks.

After attacking the driver, the passenger grabbed the steering wheel, forcing the bus into the oncoming lanes of the interstate before it crossed the road and tipped over onto its right side, the medical examiner said.

The driver was able to crawl from the wreckage through a window and tried to flag down passing vehicles. He told Brandon the attacker was thrown through the windshield.

The bus, No. 1115, left Louisville, Ky., and was due to stop next in Atlanta, Greyhound spokeswoman Karen Chapman said.

Rinearson told WTVF the attacker, who appeared to be 30 to 35 years old, kept approaching her front seat and asking what time it was. She said the man then asked if he could have her seat, and she refused.

He then attacked the driver, she said.

Dallas-based Greyhound stopped all service as a precaution after the crash, spokeswoman Kristin Parsley said. About 1,900 of its 2,300 buses had been on the road when the crash occurred, she said.

She said buses already en route were allowed to continue to their destinations.

Passengers across the country, already jittery after last month's terror attacks, had to wait hours or find other means of transportation.

``People are a little panicky about it,'' said Joi Smith, a Greyhound agent in New Hampshire. ``They are freaked out, which is understandable.''

Greyhound had begun boosting security in many terminals around the nation, said Tim Barham, district manager of driver operations in Washington, D.C.

``Ever since the September 11 events we've had several discussions and started to implement extra security,'' he said.

-

Greyhound has set up a toll-free phone number for relatives seeking information about passengers 800-884-2744.

-- (another@report.), October 03, 2001.

Huh? This story broke this morning.

Did you read it?

Both the U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites) and the U.S. Department of Transportation said initial indications were that the incident was not related to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), October 03, 2001.

``These officials have told us they believe that this morning's accident in Tennessee was as the result of a single deranged individual,'' Greyhound said in a statement."

Of course they are going to say that! Otherwise Greyhound is going to lose a lot of business, just like the airlines.

-- (keep on lying @ profits. before people), October 03, 2001.

FROM DRUDGEREPORT!! (as we all know from the Monicate scandal, Drudge is the only reliable source of media willing to tell the truth)

Greyhound crash kills six; passenger says driver was attacked

By SUE MCCLURE Staff Writer

MANCHESTER, Tenn. – Six people were killed and dozens of others injured after a passenger on a Greyhound bus stabbed the bus driver, causing the bus to wreck and flip on Interstate 24.

Though Greyhound temporarily suspended its bus service nationwide, a U.S. Justice Department spokesman in Washington told The Tennessean that authorities do not yet believe the incident is related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

''We're in the early stages of the investigation but we do not believe at this time that is related to terrorism,'' said Susan Dryden, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice.

View more photos related to the bus crash.

Driver's throat cut

A male passenger on the bus approached the driver near Manchester, pulled a weapon and slashed the driver's throat, said Dr. Al Brandon, chief of staff of the Medical Center of Manchester and Coffee County's medical examiner. Brandon spoke after performing neck surgery on the driver, who talked to him.

The man stabbed the driver, Garfield Sands of Marietta, Ga., and then took control of the steering wheel, the driver told Brandon. Brandon quoted Sands as saying the man appeared to be a foreigner, had a Middle Eastern accent and definitely intended to wreck the bus.

Dr. Ralph Bard of the Medical Center of Manchester talked extensively with Sands before operating on him.

He told CNN that the driver told him that the man approached him three times to ask about what stops were coming up. On the third time, the man reached around, slit Sands' throat with a box cutter or razor blade and then grabbed the wheel and intentionally steered the bus into the median.

The driver told the doctor that the attacker appeared to be trying to steer the bus into the oncoming lines of traffic on I-24. A fence in the median prevented the bus from crossing into the other lanes, but Sands told Bard the vehicle flipped several times, landing driver's-side up. Investigators on the scene, however, believe the bus turned on its side and slid, without flipping.

Though wounded and bleeding profusely, Sands was able to climb out of the bus.

The driver thought the attacker had come aboard the bus in Louisville. He described him as tall, thin, clean-shaven and having a dark complexion.

The perpetrator was killed in the wreck when he was thrown through the front windshield of the bus, Brandon said this morning.

Officials found a Croatian passport on the bus, but do not yet know whether it is authentic or belongs to the alleged attacker, a federal law enforcement source told The Tennessean.

Passenger's account

Passenger Carly Rinearson, 19, was sitting behind the bus driver and witnessed the attack, said her father, Robert Rinearson.

''We don't know where (he boarded). I assumed it was in the middle of the night,'' Robert Rinearson said from his home in Fort Wayne, Ind. ''She said it happened at a stop. The driver was out and the guy came out of nowhere. He jumped on the bus and went toward the back.''

As the bus continued on its way, the assailant approached Carly Rinearson asking for her seat. The man appeared nervous and agitated and kept looking at his watch, Rinearson said.

Rinearson said this was his daughter's first trip away from home to visit a friend in Georgia. He said he had counseled her to sit at the front of the bus. So she refused to give up that front seat, and the assailant returned to the back of the bus.

Later, he again came forward, slitting the driver's throat, grabbing the wheel and turning it. He said his daughter doesn't remember what happened after that. She suffered minor wounds, complaining of a sore chest and wrist, her father said.

''Don't tell me God was not watching out for her,'' he said.

Later, officials with the FBI and other agencies questioned her at the hospital in Manchester and asked her to identify the body of the assailant. She said she noticed a passport when she was asked to identify his body, her father said.

''She said when they had her identify the body she broke down,'' he said.

Passengers are being detained at the hospital and will be taken to a motel later, he said.

''I'm real upset because we have yet to hear from Greyhound or any law enforcement officers,'' he said. ''She's 19, but she's still young. If it were not for the news media and the hospital allowing her to call, we wouldn't know a thing.''

Rinearson, who is a security official with the Fort Wayne Public Schools, ironically was on the scene of a bus accident shortly after 7 a.m. when his wife called about the crash.

''My wife called me because the Today Show had called her. That's how we found out,'' he said.

Investigation begins

FBI Special Agent Scott Nowinsky told The Tennessean, ''We're looking into possible violation of the 'destruction of a motor vehicle in interstate transportation statute' and whether or not the incident may be related to ongoing terrorism investigations.''

The ivory-colored wrecked bus lay on its right side this morning in a ditch near the westbound lanes of the interstate, near the 105 mile marker, with the driver's side mirror sticking up in the air. The wreck is just north of the Manchester/U.S. 41 exit.

The westbound lanes of I-24 are expected to remain closed all day, the Tennessee Department of Transportation said in a statement this morning.

The bodies of the dead have not yet been removed from the scene, said Luke Smith, a reserve sheriff's deputy for Coffee County and one of those who offered medical assistance to the passengers. The fatalities include one person whose body is trapped under the bus' real dual wheels and another whose body was thrown in front of the bus, Smith said.

One of the wounded people Smith said he helped was a pregnant woman, whom other rescuers described aiding as well. ''He's killed somebody inside,'' the woman told Smith as she was being loaded into an emergency helicopter, Smith recalled.

The driver of the bus is doing very well and is very calm, Brandon said. He may be well enough to go home as soon as tomorrow, the doctor said.

Dozens of police, fire and rescue workers moved around the scene, along with agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, its forensic services unit and its crime lab team. Around 8:15 a.m., an American flag was raised on the tall communications antenna of a truck belonging to the fire and rescue team from nearby Arnold Air Force Base.

Four helicopters and two planes circled the wreck site around 9:30 a.m. At the same time, two brown-and-black helicopters from the state highway patrol landed in the median about 200 yards from the wreck site. State Safety Commissioner Mike Greene disembarked from one of them.

Meanwhile, rescue workers erected a huge blue tarp near the bus scene, possibly to shield from view the bodies as they are removed.

The bus wrecked around 4:13 a.m., said Dana Keeton, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The bus was traveling east, heading to Atlanta. When it wrecked, it went across the interstate median and crossed into the oncoming lanes as it flipped over.

The bus created a deep rut in the median.

Keeton said she could not confirm reports that a passenger on the bus had attacked the driver. She said investigators were continuing to interview bus passengers as she spoke.

Steve DeFord, a spokesman for the Coffee County Sheriff's Department, also said he couldn't confirm details, but told NBC ''the assailant'' was among those killed. FBI agents were among the investigators at the crash site.

Speaking by cellular phone from the crash site, passenger Carly Rinearson told Nashville TV station WTVF that a man who appeared to be 30 to 35 years old kept approaching her front seat and asking what time it was. She said the man then asked if he could have her seat, and she refused.

Afterward, ''he just went up to the bus driver and, like, slit his throat, and the driver turned the wheel and the bus tipped over,'' Rinearson said.

32 people injured

Six people were pronounced dead at the scene and 32 others were injured, Keeton said. At least one person is still in the bus, and their condition was not known, Keeton said.

Four patients have been taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, hospital spokesmen said, including an 18-year-old woman, another woman and two men, who are in critical but stable condition in the trauma unit. All are expected to live, he said.

''We had a lot of walking wounded,'' said John Cathey, director of the emergency medical services for Coffee County. He said there were about 40 people total on the bus when it wrecked.

Of the people on the bus, nine were taken to a hospital in Rutherford County; one was taken to a hospital in nearby Tullahoma; four went to a hospital in neighboring Moore County, and nine others to Middle Tennessee Medical Center in Manchester, Cathey said.

Sam Miller, Manchester fire chief, said he had arrived at the wreck scene shortly after the crash. Speaking as he munched on a McDonald's sausage biscuit — some of the food brought out to the wreck scene by Manchester businesses to feed the legions of rescue workers — Miller said he arrived to find many of the passengers in shock, and many of them walking around the bus scene dazed.

Miller said several people were trapped under seats on the bus and had to be extricated. Among the people rescued was the a pregnant woman, Miller said.

The pregnant woman was the last person out of the bus, and she was airlifted out to medical treatment, said Josh Brown, a Manchester firefighter.

The National Transportation Safety Board is sending seven investigators to assist the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in an advisory role, a spokesman said this morning.

The westbound lanes of I-24 are completely stopped at the wreck scene, causing a massive traffic backup at rush hour. The westbound travelers are being detoured off the interstate onto U.S. 41, the main highway through Manchester.

Meanwhile, the eastbound traffic on the interstate was reduced to one lane for about a mile around the wreck. Traffic was also congested there, due to both the lane closure and the many people slowing to look at the wreck as they passed.

Bus was bound for Atlanta

The bus that wrecked was not slated to stop in Nashville, according to a schedule from Greyhound's Web site. James Falley, a new Greyhound driver from Nashville, arrived at the wreck scene this morning with directions to pick up the luggage of the passengers on the wrecked bus.

The bus, No. 1115, originated in Chicago and it stopped in Louisville, Ky., earlier this morning. It was headed for Atlanta and eventually Orlando, Fla., Greyhound spokeswoman Karen Chapman said, the AP reported.

Greyhound, which is based in Dallas, temporarily suspended all its bus passenger service nationwide in the wake of the wreck, the AP said, but buses that were on the road were allowed to travel on to their destinations before stopping. Greyhound resumed service at noon today.

''We don't have any indication throughout our system that this is part of any pattern,'' Chet Lunner, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation, told CNN, the AP quoted.

The bus wreck has come about three weeks after suspected terrorists hijacked two commercial airlines and flew them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing both towers to collapse and killing more than 5,000 people.

At the same time, another group of terrorists also flew a commercial airliner into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing several hundred people there. A fourth hijacked plane went down in a field in rural Pennsylvania; the passengers of that flight were believed to have tried to lead a revolt against the terrorists.

Staff writers Bill Snyder, Warren Duzak, Carly Harrington, Leon Alligood, John Shiffman, Jennifer Peebles, Sheila Wissner, Gail Kerr and Jay Hamburg contributed to this report.

-- (Greyhound will go bankrupt @ sell. stocks now!), October 03, 2001.

Nuke Croatia!!!

-- (nuke@em.now), October 03, 2001.

Sheesh, they bought the fire chief a sausage biscuit for doing the job he is paid to do? Ha ha, fucking liberals! Why don't they just get on their knees and kiss his ass while they're at it.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), October 03, 2001.