Eight Hospitalized After MTA Bus Crash on East Preston Street

A CityLink Green MTA bus and two passenger cars collided at the intersection of East Preston and St. Paul streets in Midtown-Belvedere just before 1:15 a.m. Thursday, sending eight people to area hospitals and triggering one of the more complex rescue operations Baltimore City Fire Department crews have carried out at a crash scene in recent memory.

The force of the impact wedged a Honda Accord beneath the bus, pinning the driver inside the wreckage for hours. Nearby resident Richard Morehead described watching the scene unfold and recounted what a passenger told him. "We were just going downtown, my buds and me... the next thing I know, the bus had slammed into this car and we were jolted forward," the passenger said, according to Morehead. He added that the trapped driver could be heard crying out from underneath the bus: "He was screaming, 'I'm in pain. Get me out of here.'"

Morehead told WBAL that the bus had a green light and that the car ran the red. "The bus just got him in front and crushed the car under the wheels of the bus," he said. That account remains an eyewitness claim; the crash is under active investigation and no official determination of fault has been released.

Freeing the Honda's driver required a sequential, painstaking process. Fire officials said crews had to stabilize the bus, then stabilize the driver, then dismantle the car around him. When the extrication was complete, the only portion of the Honda left largely intact was the section where the driver had been sitting. The collision also destroyed the entire bus windshield, snapped a large metal pole, nearly brought down a second, and pulled traffic lights and their wiring to the ground.

Baltimore City Fire Department's Special Operations Command conducted the extrication while the University of Maryland Medical Center's Shock Trauma Go Team, including trauma physicians and other specialists, responded directly to the scene at 100 East Preston Street. WBAL reported that seven passengers on the bus were injured and transported to a hospital, while the Honda's driver was taken to Shock Trauma. Officials said injuries across all eight ranged from very serious to minor, and all are expected to survive, according to officials cited by The BayNet.

The 100 block of East Preston Street, a stretch of apartments and businesses including a nail salon and a hair salon, remained closed for nearly 12 hours as utility repair crews worked to address the downed traffic lights and severed wires. Authorities urged drivers to avoid the East Preston and St. Paul street corridor while emergency operations were underway. The crash remains under investigation.