Police said 17 people were injured, and one person, a non-student, was taken to a trauma center in New Hampshire.
Emergency workers respond to a bus rollover involving University of Massachusetts students on Friday, Dec. 3, 2010 in Putney, Vt. (AP Photo/Brattleboro Reformer, Zachary P. Stephens) Updates a story first posted Friday at 5:59 p.m.
PUTNEY, Vt. - The Associated Press is reporting that Vermont police say 17 people were injured when bus carrying University of Massachusetts at Amherst students to a ski trip in Quebec crashed Friday afternoon on Interstate 91.
A press release issued by state police stated a group of students was traveling in three buses, but only one bus was involved in the accident. The crash occurred on Interstate 91 Southbound at mile marker 22 near Putney, according to state police information officer Stephanie Dasaro.
Police initially said 30 people were injured, three of them critically. Earlier reports from media outlets in Vermont indicated there were six critical injuries and 37 people hurt.
The Associated Press reports that police later reduced the number of injured to 17, and a spokeswoman cited the chaotic scene as a reason for the discrepancy.
According to the AP, hospitals say 16 people had minor injuries, and one victim — a non-student — was airlifted to a trauma center in New Hampshire.
No information about the students or the extent of their injuries, if any, was available from the UMass news office.
Vermont state police posted a phone number for relatives of patients transported to local hospitals after the crash. For information about relatives who were injured people are instructed to call the Royalton Barracks at 802-234-9933.
The university issued this statement just before 7 p.m.:
An undetermined number of UMass Amherst students were apparently on a bus that crashed in southern Vermont and was part of a private ski tour, according to campus spokesman Ed Blaguszewski. "At this point, we are gathering information about this event," Blaguszewski said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to those people who were injured in the crash.
He later said that thankfully the extant of injuries appears to be much less than initially reported.
The bus was operated by Tour World of Danville, Pa. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Analysis and Information website, this is the fourth crash of a Tour World bus this year.
Students are members of the college
Dasaro says it was not immediately clear how the crash occurred.