According to state officials, eight individuals died after a bus carrying roughly 53 farmworkers on West Highway 40 in central Florida was struck by a truck and flipped.
Bryan Maclean Howard, the driver of the vehicle, was taken into custody on eight charges of DUI-manslaughter, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Marion County Fire Rescue reports that thirty-eight persons were injured, eight of whom are critically ill and thirty of whom have non-life-threatening wounds.
According to Florida Highway Patrol Lieutenant Patrick Riordan, there’s a “high probability this may be beyond eight fatalities,” he told reporters.
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Officials reported that Howard was one among the hospitalized patients.
The 2010 International Bus was traveling in the opposite direction from Howard’s 2001 Ford Ranger pickup at 6:35 a.m. when the truck drifted into the center line, causing the vehicles to crash “in a sideswiped manner,” according to officials.
Officials claimed that after the bus swerved off West Highway 40, it crashed through a fence and overturned. According to Riordan, the bus was headed to a nearby farm when it crashed.
Alicia Bárcena, the secretary of foreign affairs for Mexico, said that some of the farm laborers involved in the accident were Mexican. Asserting its support for those impacted, the Mexican consulate in Orlando said.
