At Least 4 Die in Bus-Van Collision

IXONIA, Wis. â€”  A tour bus carrying residents of a retirement home collided head-on with a delivery van Tuesday, killing at least four people and injuring 19 others, authorities said.

Twenty-two people were aboard the bus, authorities said. The van, which carried only the driver, burst into flames during the accident 30 miles west of Milwaukee.

More than a dozen people were taken to area hospitals. At least four were in critical condition.

“There was no one that was not injured in this accident,� Jefferson County Sheriff’s Capt. Kevin Stapleton said.

Both drivers were among those killed, he said.

Mike Leslie, 21, a clerk at a nearby gas station, was driving on a highway behind the van and watched it turn left onto a county road. He was about to follow when he saw flames--no van, just “fire and black smoke.�

“And then through the flames came the bus and the bus slammed into the ditch,� he said. “I couldn’t believe it. It was just so fast.

“If I would have turned, I would have been there, right behind the van.�

Leslie later helped take people off the bus. Some were unconscious and one woman was seriously hurt. “Her face was bleeding pretty bad from her nose,� Leslie said. “She said her back and stomach hurt.�

Zinzendorf Hall, a retirement home in Watertown, chartered the bus to take people to Milwaukee, said Ehren Bittorf, the manager of bus owner Transportation Services of Watertown.