Wheelchair rider hurt in NICE 'maiden run'
Reporter Barbara Ann Yanger attempts to board the new "NICE" bus in Garden City, but falls backward in her wheelchair. (Jan. 1, 2012) Credit: Barry Sloan
The New Year's Day "maiden run" of a Nassau County NICE bus was hastily scrapped after a journalist in a wheelchair fell and hit her head on the pavement while boarding the bus at a news conference in Garden City.
The journalist, Barbara Yanger, was taken by ambulance to Nassau County Medical Center, Nassau police said. Her condition was stable Sunday night, the hospital said.
Yanger was attempting to roll her chair up a ramp at the front of the bus unassisted when her wheelchair flipped backward, slamming her head against the depot tarmac.
"I can't move," Yanger said Sunday night from her hospital bed.
Yanger is using a wheelchair after she suffered a heart attack and stroke a few weeks ago that left her right side paralyzed, said her husband, Raymond.
The 12:30 p.m. bus ride, from a bus fueling and service depot, had been intended to highlight the new Nassau Inter-County Express Bus system, which rolled out Sunday shortly after midnight.
Andrew Read Kraus, a NICE Bus spokesman, told a few dozen county and Veolia employees and reporters that the bus ride was canceled. "We're praying" for Yanger, he said.
With Chau Lam
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