The bus was one of 3 taking UMass Ski and Board Club members on a weekend ski trip to Quebec.
Emergency workers respond to a bus rollover on Friday, Dec. 3, 2010 in Putney, Vt. Vermont State Police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro says the accident occurred Friday at mile marker 22 in Putney. (AP Photo/Brattleboro Reformer, Zachary P. Stephens)Updates stories posted Friday at 5:59 p.m. and 8:14 p.m.
Written with staff reporter Sandra Constantine
PUTNEY, Vt. - A total of 17 people were injured Friday afternoon when a tour bus carrying University of Massachusetts at Amherst students on a ski trip to Quebec crashed on Interstate 91 in Vermont, according to Vermont state police.
The bus, operated by Tour World, Inc., of Danville, Pa., slid down an embankment in Putney and came to rest on its side.
The bus that crashed was one of three on a private ski tour. Not all passengers were students.
Police initially said 30 people were injured, three of them critically.
Police later reduced the number of injured to 17 people. A spokesman cited the chaotic scene as the reason for the discrepancy.
Vermont and New Hampshire hospitals treated 16 people with minor injuries, and one victim - a non-student - was airlifted to a trauma center in New Hampshire.
State police spokesman Stephanie Dasaro says it was not immediately clear how the crash occurred.
Dasaro said the crash occurred on Interstate 91 southbound at mile marker 22. The bus was heading north when it somehow flipped onto the south-bound side of the highway and crashed.
Joe Schoppy, owner of Tour World, told the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper there were three buses on their way from the UMass campus in Amherst to Quebec City in Canada for a ski trip.
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.
The UMass Ski and Board Club organized the trip, according to a student at the school.
UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski said, “At this point we are gathering information about the event. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were injured in the crash.”
He said the trip was not sponsored by the university, but members of a ski club known at the university known as the Ski and Board Club organized the trip.
For relatives of students or others who may have been on the bus, the Vermont state police posted a phone number for people to inquire whether their relatives were taken to area hospitals. Relatives were instructed to call the Royalton barracks at (802) 234-9933.