ORLAND-
The driver behind the wheel of a charter bus carrying prospective college students didn’t have time to react. A FedEx truck crossed the median from the southbound lanes of I-5 into the northbound lanes near Orland, sideswiped a white car, then slammed head-on into the bus.
From there, fire and horror.
“There were a bunch of screams and a man ran out and his back was one fire,” Luis Lopez said. He lives nearby and saw the aftermath of the accident.
“People were calling for help. It was scary, it was horrible,” Lopez told FOX40.
After the dust settled, our cameras were able to capture the magnitude of the accident. Strewn along the highway, lots of evidence and clues like skid marks and pieces of debris, but not a lot of answers. It may take months to figure it out.
Northbound lanes of I-5 stayed closed for 18 hours so investigators could comb through what’s left. The FedEx semi truck was split in half, it took a front loader, excavator, flat-bed and tow truck to clear the wreckage.
The impact from the crash was so severe, the vehicles involved shattered.