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Police responded to a NJ TRANSIT bus crash on October 16 unsure of how to rescue the struggling victims. The accident occurred on East Kings Highway and Route 38 in Maple Shade Township around 6:15 p.m. According to police, a NJ TRANSIT Paratransit bus collided with a white Chevy Equinox and sent the bus crashing through the guardrail—finally landing in a heavily wooded ravine.
When police arrived at the scene of the Burlington County accident, they found the driver of the Chevy SUV standing outside his vehicle. The bus driver and his passenger, however, were trapped inside the Paratransit bus, which was tangled in the trees on top of a 50-foot-high ravine.
"We had patients inside that vehicle, so we had to make sure before we even went in there and got them, we stabilized that vehicle so our guys could go in there and get them," Maple Shade Fire Chief Kevin Greenfield commented. "It was a crazy way the bus landed, so we had to find out a way to get that bus out of the embankment."
The rescue team used two large tow trucks, one behind the bus and one ahead, to carefully guide the bus down the ravine to the road below. Thirty minutes later, the victims were extracted and taken to Cooper University Hospital, where they were said to have suffered non-critical injuries.
The driver of the SUV was taken to Kennedy University Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.
Police are using crash data and onboard cameras from the TRANSIT bus to piece together the details of the accident. The investigation into the crash in ongoing.