Chain-Reaction Crash of 2 MTA Buses, Tour Bus Injures Dozens

An MTA bus crashed into another MTA bus, which slammed into a bus full of French tourists in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday evening, sending 27 to hospitals and dozens more home with aches.

Officials said they were amazed that none of the 85 or so passengers was seriously hurt or killed in the accident at 7:10 p.m. at Temple and Spring streets.

“Everyone was knocked down,” said Juan Sanchez, 30, a gardener who was headed home to South Los Angeles on the No. 28 bus from his job in Eagle Rock. “Everyone screamed. All the mothers were grabbing for their children.”

Sanchez, who hurt his knee and hand but did not go to a hospital, said almost everyone on his bus suffered some type of injury. Several people were treated for possible neck and spine injuries, but none were critical, authorities said.

The accident compounded what was already a traffic nightmare downtown. Police already had closed streets around 1st and Hill streets to investigate an unattended briefcase. It turned out to be harmless.

But it meant that Tracy Andrews’ bus, the No. 2, which normally travels up Broadway, made a detour to go west on Temple Street. Andrews, 40, and other passengers said their bus ran a yellow light.

Moments later, “I was looking at another bus coming right at our back door.”

That bus, the No. 28, which had been turning right on Temple from Spring, crashed into the right flank of her bus, throwing passengers from their seats. Andrews’ bus then plowed into a white luxury bus carrying about 25 French tourists east on Temple to a Mexican restaurant.

Moments after the crash, Andrews said, someone screamed that the bus was going to blow up and they should all get off.

“A lot of people in the front were bleeding,” she said. Andrews, who was headed to West Hollywood with a friend, said she had to scramble over broken glass on floors slick with blood.

Her friend went to a hospital, but Andrews said she thought she was OK.

Many of the French tourists, meanwhile, seemed unfazed. Some even whipped out cameras to record the American policemen who descended upon the scene.

Jullien Daniel, 69, of Grenoble, France, said no one in his party was injured but many were hungry, and he was pleased when a replacement tour bus showed up to take them to their restaurant.

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Times staff writer Jessica Garrison contributed to this report.