From boston.com
(Photo by Annie Tritt for The New York Times)
By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff
A dump truck struck a parked Fung Wah bus in New York this morning, creating a chain of collisions that left one pedestrian dead and six others injured, police said.
At 7:49 a.m., the Boston-bound Fung Wah bus was in the process of loading passengers in Chinatown, its driver stationed by the front door.
A private dump truck driver, Alejandro Fallo, 54, lost control of his vehicle, said New York Police Department Detective Mindy Diaz. When the truck hit the bus, it propelled the bus onto the sidewalk, where it hit a fire hydrant, and careened into the front of a bank on the corner of Canal Street and Bowery.
Meanwhile, the dump truck sputtered into three more parked vans before finally stopping.
Lai Ho, 57 of Brooklyn, was among several people waiting to cross the street. A sign attached to a light pole fell on her, Diaz said. She was taken to Beekman Hospital, where she was pronounced dead from a heart attack, Diaz said.
Five others, including two police officers, were treated for minor injuries and released, she said. Fallo, who drives for the CPQ Freight Systems out of New Jersey, was in the hospital in critical but stable condition. Diaz said he tested negative for alcohol. Police are now looking into whether his brakes were working correctly.
“They’re trying to determine if there’s going to be any criminal charges pending,” she said. “But so far, it doesn’t look that way.”
The Fung Wah bus was almost empty, with two people boarding at the time of the crash, she said. The company — which offers low fare tickets between Boston and New York — has received negative publicity for its safety record in recent years. But in this case, there was nothing the driver could have done, Diaz said.
“They were minding their own business,” she said.
Workers who answered the phone at Fung Wah’s offices had no comment.