Only minor injuries in overturned tour bus

WHITNEY POINT -- A tour bus carrying Polish tourists was going too fast during a downpour when it crashed and flipped over on an upstate highway, and many suffered minor injuries, authorities said.

State Police Capt. Eric Janis said yesterday that 19 people were treated at three hospitals after Wednesday night's accident. Others were treated for minor injuries at the scene.

The tour company said all the passengers were brought back to New Jersey, and Janis said police were trying to confirm that all the injured had been released. The injured included a woman who was trapped beneath the bus and was dug out by emergency crews.

"They had to actually dig the dirt underneath the bus to free the lady," State Police Sgt. Todd Burdick told WBNG-TV in Binghamton. He told the Press and Sun-Bulletin of Binghamton that heavy rain and driving too fast for conditions caused the accident, which occurred on a rural stretch of Interstate 81 near Whitney Point, about 15 miles north of Binghamton.

The bus was traveling from Niagara Falls to Trenton when it left the highway's southbound lanes and went down an 80-foot grass embankment before overturning and landing on its roof in a gully, Burdick said.

Janis said it was raining heavily at the time, while other troopers said there was a half-inch of standing water on the road. The speed limit along that stretch is 65 mph, although investigators don't know yet how fast the bus was going before it crashed, Janis said.

He said the bus was removed from the crash scene and taken to an undisclosed location where the state police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement unit was conducting its investigation.