Agencies acted fast in bus crash

The massive response by rescue workers from multiple agencies to the fatal bus crash in Colusa County was well organized, a Colusa County official said.

Eight people were killed and 35 injured when the bus went out of control, rolled over and ended up in a ditch at Lone Star and Abel roads.

More than a dozen fire and police agencies from Glenn, Lake, Yolo and Sutter counties responded to the call for assistance. Eight helicopters were also used from three different agencies to transport patients. At least 100 emergency personnel were involved.

At the scene of the crash in central Colusa County, dozens of emergency personnel lined the two-lane country road. Red and yellow lights flashed in the darkness to provide light to the scene late Sunday night.

Colusa County Sheriff-Coroner Scott Marshall estimated the more than 30 people injured in the crash were transported to various hospitals in less than two hours.

"For a little county like us, that's pretty amazing" he said of the time it took to transport patients.

Marshall said the emergency response plan, known as the mutual management agreement, was first set up in the state in the 1950s. In Sunday's crash since the CHP was first on the scene, it organized the effort to call in outside help.

Normally, Marshall said, agencies use resources within their own counties or regions before calling for help, but Sunday's crash was so overwhelming that mutual aid was immediately requested from neighboring counties.

"This was red lights and sirens, we didn't have a long time to wait for response," he said. "So we immediately reached out to neighboring counties."

The effort was one of the largest that emergency personnel could recall in recent years, though mutual aid responses between counties happens all the time, Marshall said.

"We're so rural, we can't do it alone," Marshall said. "We have to rely on our neighbors."

Marshall and California Highway Patrol Sgt. Pat Landreth recalled one other major bus accident that left four injured.

According to the Appeal-Democrat archives, 39 people were on board a Greyhound bus headed to Sacramento from Redding on Interstate 5 on July 1, 2005, when it ran off the road.

Landreth said there were several differences between that incident and Sunday's crash. He said Sunday's crash was on a smaller road and crews had to maneuver through water and mud, which makes recovery efforts difficult.

"Here we've got a bus, in the water and it's mangled," he said. "This is what we rehearse for."

Contact Appeal-Democrat re-porter Andrea Koskey at 749-4709 or akoskey@appealdemocrat.com