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It looked like a scene from a movie or video game, Rob Glinski said.
A tour bus, heading back to New York City after a trip to the American side of Niagara Falls, was swerving between lanes on the New York State Thruway when it crashed just after noon on Friday.
The bus driver got distracted and lost control, officials said, overcorrecting and rolling over on the interstate, near the town of Pembroke, about 40 miles east of Niagara Falls.
Glinski said it was like someone had taken a snow globe and shaken it. He thought about the more than 50 passengers onboard, many of whom might not have been wearing seat belts.
First responders swarmed the area to help the passengers, some of whom were ejected or trapped. Many of the passengers, some from China and the Philippines, spoke little English, so along with the ambulances and the tow trucks, translators were brought in to help police sort out what happened.
“So many people were hurt and some of them are smaller than me, maybe 4 or 5 years old,” Zihan Lnfu, 8 years old, told CNN affiliate Spectrum News Rochester.
Five people were killed in the crash, including a Columbia University student from China. At least 47 of the passengers on the bus were taken to four regional hospitals for treatment for critical and minor injuries, including head and internal injuries and broken bones.
Gao Gao Yu, who had been on the bus with her father, said some passengers began climbing out of the windows to get out. She told Spectrum News Rochester she had no shoes and there was glass everywhere.
Yu said she saw “a guy who had a really bad cut on his head” who “couldn’t move,” and a family of five, including a one-year-old in a car seat, sitting behind the bus driver.
Glinski, who had been driving in his truck, said everyone behind him started braking after the bus crashed.
“It was almost like you went in slow motion,” he said.
He pulled over and ran to help passengers who were thrown from the bus. A nurse and several doctors who had been driving on the I-90 when the bus jumped into action as well, he added.
“They came through very organized, they placed numbers and color-coded cards down on the ground, and the medics attended those people in accordance to the numbers that were placed out, and it was totally calm,” Glinski said.
Glinski, 57, came across a young woman who had been traveling with her parents and uncle.
“I looked at her arm, her arm was just a mess,” he said.
He took his Under Armour shirt off, and used it as a tourniquet, tying it under the woman’s armpit as tight as he could.
Glinski said he waited with her until she was loaded into an ambulance and taken to a hospital.
The Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, the only adult level-one trauma center for Western New York, received 21 patients. On Sunday, an official with the hospital said 11 people had been discharged, with another expected to be released. All of their other patients have been deemed medically stable.
Six victims were brought to the University of Rochester Medical Center by air and ground ambulance, said hospital spokesperson Scott Hesel. “Two are being treated for critical injuries and four are medically stable, including one pediatric patient,” he said.
Kaleida Health said in a statement to Spectrum News Rochester it received 20 patients, including four adults in good condition to Buffalo General Medical Center, 11 adults and two children to Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital and three children – one in serious condition – to Oishei Children’s Hospital. Most of the patients were in good or fair condition and at least one of those adults has been discharged, the health care network said.
Additional patients were taken to United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia, according to state police.
Powell Stephens, who drove by the crash on his way home to Medina from Buffalo, said the scene was heartbreaking. “There was a lot of people embracing each other. It looked like people were breaking down,” Stephens told CNN affiliate WHAM
People who saw the aftermath of the wreck said glass and people’s belongings were scattered on the highway.
“We were lucky to survive,” Yu said.