A passenger who was critically injured after a tour bus overturned Thursday morning on Interstate 490 has died, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said Friday morning.
Twenty-seven other people were hurt, including the bus driver, who was issued multiple tickets.
The Sheriff's Office said the passenger died late Thursday at Strong Memorial Hospital.
The crash occurred shortly after 7 a.m. between exits 3 and 4 in the Chili/Riga area, near Union Street. Monroe County Sheriff and State Police are investigating.
During a media briefing Thursday morning, authorities said the bus — operated by Tribal Sun Bus Co. in Massachusetts — had left from New York City at midnight and was making stops along the Thruway on its way to Niagara Falls.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash.
As of Thursday afternoon, the bus driver has been issued multiple tickets, including speeding and not wearing a seatbelt, with driver's fatigue listed as a contributing cause of the accident. The driver was ejected through the windshield and suffered non-critical injuries.
The number of hours the driver had been at the wheel is currently one of the issues under investigation.
“We don’t believe there’s any criminality involved, but that’s the kind of investigation we do when we are absolutely not going to leave any stone unturned,” said Monroe County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Michael Fowler.
Tribal Sun has six reported crashes on record, according to reports from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Two of those resulted in injury, and one was fatal.
The fatal crash occurred in 2012 outside of the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. The driver, 38-year-old Lin Qi Si, was later charged with negligent homicide in the death of 62-year-old pedestrian Pui Li Yi.
As of its most recent inspection in October, Tribal Sun has amassed 37 violations. Its most recent violation, in September, was due to a driver driving beyond the 10-hour limit placed on a passenger vehicle. Another violation from September found a driver was operating a vehicle while “ill or fatigued.”
The company currently has no critical violations or investigations for hours of compliance. The FMCSA currently places Tribal Sun in the 76th percentile for on-road performance. While the agency indicates the company may require further monitoring, a transport company qualifies for intervention when it falls below the 50th percentile.
State Police are assisting the Monroe County Sheriff's Office with investigating a crash on Interstate 490 westbound in the town of Chili involving an overturned tour bus. Interstate 490 westbound is closed at Union Street. pic.twitter.com/LSPOvhW555
— NewYorkStatePolice (@nyspolice) November 7, 2024
Several ambulances and other first responders responded to the scene Thursday morning.
Rochester Regional Health, which is treating some of the hurt passengers at Rochester General and Unity hospitals, said in a statement that this type of mass casualty is "a scenario we regularly train for and we are coordinating closely with local EMS and law enforcement to ensure a swift and organized response."
Thirteen passengers were transferred to Strong Memorial Hospital and three to Highland Hospital, according to a statement from the University of Rochester Medical Center. One received emergency surgery, with the rest suffering non-serious injuries, including one child.
The mass-casualty event aligned with shift change at some area hospitals, so there were additional staffers available, said Dr. Michael Kamali, chairperson of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. And emergency rooms, which have routinely been overcapacity, were not.
"Anytime you have a mass casualty incident, and we trained for this quite routinely ... we'll hit pause on things until we get a sense of what's going on and how many resources we need," Kamali said. "For example, operating rooms, things of that sort. We were fortunate that many of the patients did not need the operating room so other patients who were waiting their surgeries, those could proceed.
"We had adequate space in the department at the time, so we were able to accommodate all the patients that we received from the bus crash, as well as other patients that were coming in at the time," Kamali said.
Strong Memorial Hospital said on Friday that of the 11 people from the crash who are still hospitalized, 4 are in guarded condition and 7 are in satisfactory condition.
One person is hospitalized in satisfactory condition at Highland Hospital. Strong officials say that all other tour bus crash victims who were treated at Strong, Highland, Unity and RGH have been discharged from the hospital.
"Room is always a challenge," Kamali said. "That's why we do have construction going here to build some additional space. But we will find room, and we will take care of all of the patients."
In a statement, Gov. Kathy Hochul expressed her concern for those who were injured and said she was "deeply grateful for the heroic efforts of our first responders.”
"I join the people of New York in praying for the well-being of all involved in this serious incident," she said.
People concerned about friends and family members who might have been on the bus can reach the family liaison office at (585) 753-4455.
Includes reporting by staff writer Racquel Stephen.
