In the midst of heavy fog and very poor visibility, four accidents occurred as a result of one.
In the early morning hours of New Year’s Eve, Saturday December 31, 2011, a major accident occurred on I-10 East when a vehicle hit the guardrail and flipped over. A wrecker truck driver waiting at the scene of the accident was suddenly hit by a chartered bus full of passengers. The impact caused the wrecker truck to hit the guardrail and land in the ditch and the chartered bus did likewise.
Two pedestrians standing outside the first wreckage were critically injured. Baytown police, Baytown EMS and Fire and Rescue responded to the scene of the accident along with emergency medical teams from Mt. Belvieu, Channelview, Sour Lake Houston, Crosby, Highlands, Anahuac, and Beach City. The jaws of life were used to free several passengers on the bus. The bus driver himself had to be freed fro from the wreckage and was transported by ambulance to Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, Texas.
Other injured individuals were transported to various hospitals including San Jacinto Hospital in Baytown. According to information gathered at the scene, there was a total of 14 ambulatory victims. A Goose Creek school bus was dispatched to the scene to temporarily transport the non-hospitalized bus passengers to the Flying J Restaurant on I-10. There was also a fourth accident involving a car and an 18-wheeler that occurred a little farther down the road in front of the Honda dealership. Emergency crews worked for hours to free the victims and restore the traffic flow. As of the posting of this story, there were no fatalities.
