Boulder Strikes Tour Bus; 7 Die : 15 Hurt as Road Worker Moves Rock in Colorado

WINTER PARK, Colo. — A huge boulder dislodged by a state highway worker rolled off a mountainside Monday and smashed into a moving sightseeing bus, killing seven people and injuring 15 others, authorities said.

Highway Department spokesman Carl Sorrentino said a crew was clearing away rocks at a location above the scene of the accident, “ironically, so they wouldn’t fall.”

“The operator of a front-end loader pushed a large rock over the edge of the roadway onto a large flat area about 30 feet in length,” he said. “The rock continued to roll over the flat area, through several hundred feet of trees, onto U.S. 40 where it collided with the bus.”

Sorrentino said an investigation was under way. He did not release the name of the equipment operator.

At least four of the 28 people aboard the Gray Line tour bus were seriously injured. Only six passengers were not hurt.

“I saw it coming,” said bus driver Rod West, who escaped serious injury. “It came down the side of the mountain. That’s it. There was nothing I could do.”

Ivy Shaffer, a flight nurse with American Medical International Airlife in Denver, was aboard one of two helicopters that landed on the narrow, two-lane road near the demolished bus.

“The first words I uttered to myself were: ‘Oh, my God, there must be more than six people dead,’ ” said Shaffer, 30.

“The right-hand side of the bus had been totally fileted open. The seats were crushed, and metal was all over the road. And the bodies were peacefully laid on the side of the road near the mountain. They were covered with blankets.”

“It’s a terrible accident,” Gov. Roy Romer told reporters at a news conference Monday night. “Quite frankly, it’s our responsibility to make it right.”

State to Pay for Care

Romer said he is less concerned at this point about determining liability than aiding the victims and their families. The state will pay medical costs for the injured, help to bring family members to Colorado and provide counseling, he said.

“I am personally accepting responsibility for the state,” he said. “We’ll let the lawyers catch up with us later.”

Six people died at the scene and an unidentified California woman died at a Denver hospital Monday evening. Four of the dead were identified as Arlene Johnson, 61, of Renville, Minn.; John Killeen, 54, of Denver; Bill Stewart of Moulton, Ala., and his wife, Gladys. Two Australians also were killed, but their names have not been released pending notification of relatives, said county Coroner Dave Schoenfeld in Hot Sulfur Springs.

Three pairs of glasses, a crushed wristwatch, a bloodied Colorado state map, tennis shoes and cameras were scattered over the ground.

“It looked like an explosion ripped the side of the bus apart,” said Sgt. Larry Tolar of the Colorado State Patrol. “I’ve never seen one this bad. It had to be a nightmare.”

‘Bang, There It Was’

Tolar said the rock “came out of a tree line and bang, there it was.”

The boulder, which Grand County Deputy Sheriff Mark Thornton said was “as large as a car,” struck the bus just before 11 a.m. as it neared the foot of the heavily traveled, 11,314-foot-high Berthoud Pass on U.S. 40. Authorities said the rock weighed several tons.

Thornton said the boulder hit the bus several miles south of this resort community. The accident site is about 60 miles northwest of Denver.

“One man said he saw the boulder come at the bus. He was very upset because he was sitting behind two of the passengers who died,” said Teri Maddox, a reporter for the weekly Winter Park Manifest.

She said she “didn’t see any babies” among the passengers, whom she described as mostly middle-aged and senior citizens. The youngest passenger Maddox saw was a girl about 8 years old who was lying on the pavement, bleeding from cuts.

“One of the emergency personnel asked her if she was OK, and she said she was, but she was weak, and they carried her away on a stretcher,” Maddox said.

250-Mile Trip

John Schmidt, dispatcher for Gray Line bus tours in Denver, said the bus had left Denver at 8:30 a.m. for the “Circle Tour,” a 250-mile trip that takes passengers over Berthoud Pass and through Rocky Mountain National Park before returning to Denver.

Authorities said several of the passengers were foreign visitors--one from Egypt and four or five from Japan.

At Denver General Hospital, a teen-age boy was in critical condition, spokeswoman Peggy Gonder said. Two male patients undergoing treatment at St. Anthony’s Central Hospital were in serious and critical condition, spokeswoman Bev Johnson said.

Tom Smith, 43, of Punxsutawney, Pa., was in critical condition at AMI Presbyterian Hospital in Denver, spokesman Mark Sands said.

Two accident victims undergoing treatment at Timberline Clinic in Granby were listed in good condition, officials there said.

Highway officials said loose rocks are a constant problem on mountain roads.

“We have a potential for falling rocks all over the Rocky Mountains,” Sorrentino said.

He said it is too expensive to put up fences to control falling rocks at all the trouble spots.