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Day trip turns tragic when bus overturns

Troopers say a sedan clipped the retirement home shuttle. One passenger died.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published December 13, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [AP Photo] Salvage worker Marcus Murphy, second from left, picks up a walker at the scene of a bus crash Tuesday on I-75 near Bushnell.

A small bus carrying a group of elderly St. Petersburg residents home from a Christmas show crashed and overturned on Interstate 75 Tuesday, killing one passenger and sending eight other people to Central Florida hospitals.

The name of the resident who died was not being released late Tuesday.

The seven passengers and two staff members from the Westminster Shores retirement home in St. Petersburg were returning from a holiday event in Bushnell when a swerving sedan clipped the rear of the bus, sending it over on its side.

The sudden 2 p.m. crash jolted what had been a routine holiday excursion. It also created a miles-long traffic jam on the state's busy interstate.

"I'm glad I'm alive, I'll tell you," said Paul Dupuis, the driver of the shuttle bus, speaking from the emergency room at Leesburg Regional Medical Center.

Dupuis, who was treated for an injured hand and expected to be released late Tuesday, said he did not know what happened, or how his passengers were.

Neither Dupuis' company, Westminster, or the Florida Highway Patrol, provided the names of the passengers on board or the second staff member.

The crash occurred in the southbound lanes of I-75, just outside Bushnell in Sumter County, said Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Larry Coggins. Dupuis was driving in the right lane when the driver of the sedan, 38-year-old Gail Melton, clipped the rear of the bus. Both vehicles started spinning and Dupuis' eventually overturned, Coggins said. Charges against Melton, who wasn't injured, are pending, Coggins said.

A spokesman with Westminster, a company that owns 21 retirement communities in Florida, said executives were attempting to reach passengers' relatives Tuesday.

Dupuis was still trying to piece together what happened.

"It's amazing that I'm here," said Dupuis, 68, still woozy from painkillers.

[Last modified December 13, 2006, 05:47:30]