Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
By L.C. GREENE and ANNETTE WELLS
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA)
ONTARIO, Calif. — One man was killed and a firefighter was left clinging to life after a casino tour bus packed with dozens of passengers collided with a fire engine on the 10 Freeway Tuesday morning.
Kau Leung was riding in the front of the bus when the cabs of the two vehicles slammed together, killing the 75-year-old Rosemead man.
Upland Fire Department Engineer Tom Barilla, 40, who was driving the firetruck, was ejected and suffered major chest and head injuries, according to California Highway Patrol officers at the scene.
With the eastbound 10 at Fourth Street closed down, Barilla was airlifted to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, where he underwent emergency surgery. He remained in critical condition late Tuesday.
Paramedics turned the freeway’s eastbound lanes into a triage center for the 55 mostly elderly bus passengers, many of who sustained mild to moderate injuries.
“They were just frantic,” said California Highway Patrol officer Scott Stevenson, the first officer to enter the damaged bus.
Passenger Lee Yan, 67, of Los Angeles, said he was nodding off when the collision happened.
“I was thrown,” he said. Yan’s left wrist was swollen and he suffered several minor cuts.
The two other firefighters on the engine sustained minor injuries.
The vehicles collided at about 7:30 a.m. as the Upland fire crew was responding to an earlier accident on the westbound carpool lane of the 10 Freeway.
Barilla, who was headed eastbound on the 10, had planned to park his engine next to the freeway median to gain access to the westbound side and was gradually merging left into the carpool lane, CHP Officer Tony Nguyen said.
The tour bus, driven by 51-year-old Nam Jae Chung of Lakewood, was traveling eastbound in the carpool lane when it collided with the left rear of the engine, causing the engine to rotate counter-clockwise, Stevenson said.
The right front of the bus struck the driver’s side of the engine, Nguyen said.
The engine then veered right, crossing all lanes of the freeway, coming to rest on the right shoulder just west of Fourth Street.
The tour bus came to a stop in the carpool lane. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.
Firefighters were forced to cut through crushed metal to free the panicked bus passengers.
Twenty-six people, including the three Upland firefighters, were taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center for treatment.
Of the 26, 19 had minor injuries. Others’ injuries ranged from moderate to critical. By 4:30 p.m., all but Barilla and a Chinese tourist, also listed in critical condition, had been released from the hospital.
"[Barilla’s] family doesn’t want the details of his condition released but I can say he sustained injuries to his chest, face and head,” said Dr. Dev GnanaDev, the hospital’s medical director.
Mike Barilla, 41, said Tuesday afternoon that his brother Tom was still in intensive care and that the family was waiting.
“He’s very critical right now,” he said by cell phone Tuesday from Arrowhead Regional.
Mike Barilla said Tom has a wife, Dora, and two young daughters, and has been with the Upland Fire Department for 18 years.
“He comes from a background of firefighters,” Mike Barilla said. “My dad was a firefighter, I’m a firefighter in Pasadena and my brother is a firefighter in Phoenix.”
He said the family, from New York, moved to Rancho Cucamonga in 1975.
“We were just interested in this from the start,” Mike Barilla said about the brothers becoming firefighters. “It’s our personalities. We’re all athletic and have this interest in helping other people.”
Mike Barilla said his brother is known as the handyman in the family.
“He’s always over at my house fixing things,” said Mike Barilla, who is a firefighter/paramedic at Pasadena.
GnanaDev said the hospital was put under a code orange alert as a result of the collision.
About 150 hospital personnel were called in, including physicians, nurses and support staff.
Most of them were sent back home because of the low volume of patients and injuries.
“Those who stayed to help were individuals able to speak Cantonese and Mandarin languages,” GnanaDev said.
Loma Linda University Medical Center treated about 25 passengers, with one admitted in unknown condition, according to hospital sources.
Five were treated at San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland, with one admitted in fair condition.
Doctors Hospital in Montclair treated and released one patient.
The bus, operated by H&C Paradise Tours Inc. of Los Angeles, was heading to the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, company attorney Damien Morozumi of San Francisco said.
The 55 passengers, who were of Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean descent, were residents of the San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles, he said. The passengers were mostly middle-aged and elderly.
The tour company has been in business since 1997, he said. “We’ve never had a serious accident.”
For the collision to be so serious, the fire engine must have swerved sharply into the bus, Morozumi said.
However, Upland interim fire chief Jim Bowman, while not commenting on the specifics of the accident, said engineers and other fire personnel are trained to the highest safety standards.
The firetruck had its emergency lights on when the accident occurred, according to the CHP report.
The 10 Freeway’s eastbound lanes remained shut down for about eight hours.