A car slammed into a Kalamazoo Metro Transit bus on Wednesday, sending both drivers to the hospital with serious injuries.
The crash happened around 7:20 p.m. in the area of W. Michigan Avenue/South Street at Oakland Drive in Kalamazoo. W. Michigan Avenue is shut down in both directions.
The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety says the car, which was traveling at a high rate of speed, entered the intersection just as the bus got the green light. A passenger on the bus said that the driver had just taken her foot off the brake when the car hit the bus head-on.
A KDPS officer stopped at the red light saw the crash happen and helped passengers off the bus.
“We had to get out of the window. The paramedics helped us out and stuff. It was smoky,” passenger Chanell McPherson said.
Both drivers were pinned in and had to be extricated.
KDPS says both the driver of the bus and the driver of the car, who was the only person in that vehicle, sustained “significant” injuries. They were both in surgery early Wednesday night.
Four of the six passengers on the bus were also hospitalized. None of their injuries are considered life-threatening.
Police are still investigating whether drugs or alcohol could have played a factor.