AC Transit Bus Collides With Stolen Car, Crashes Into Richmond Home
RICHMOND (CBS SF) -- A bus collided with a home in Richmond Friday night after it was struck by a stolen car fleeing from sheriff's deputies, causing multiple injuries, according to officials.
The collision occurred shortly after 5:30 p.m. when a Richmond police officer spotted a stolen maroon Honda, Lt. Andre Hill said.
The officer ran the car's license plates and determined it was stolen but had not initiated any lights or sirens when the vehicle fled at a high speed, Hill said.
The car crashed into AC Transit bus no. 1077 just a few blocks later at 18th Street and Burbeck Avenue, causing the bus to careen into a home on the 700 block of 18th Street.
Ashley Ortega, her daughter and three-month-old son were inside the home at the time of the crash.
"He was on the floor in his bouncy chair, and all of a sudden I hear a big boom and I see the bus coming through my living room," Ortega told KPIX 5.
The bus bulldozed through the fence and the lawn, then plowed through the house, stopping just short of the baby. "Inches, it was inches," Ortega said.
Eight people on the bus, including the driver, were taken to hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, Hill said.
Neighbors told KPIX 5 there were children on board the bus, covered in blood. "I've seen the two little kids and I just grabbed the two little kids from them and moved them across the street," said Bernardo Ibarra, who lives nearby.
A gas line was ruptured in the crash, and PG&E crews were on the scene Friday evening.
The home was severely damaged in the crash, and a city engineer has red-tagged the structure Friday night, marking it as uninhabitable, Hill said.
The home was part of a duplex, and the other half of the duplex remains inhabitable, but is currently without power.
The bus also appears to have sustained major to moderate damage, Hill said.
Police were able to take a juvenile passenger in the stolen vehicle into custody at the scene, but are still looking for the driver, who is thought to be the older brother of the passenger.
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