Maggie Trovato, Natalie Jones

Baltimore Sun

(TNS)

The number of people injured when an MTA bus slammed into a commercial building along Reisterstown Road climbed to 36 on Thursday, as investigators continued searching for what caused one of the region’s largest transit crashes in recent years.

Baltimore County Police said detectives remain in the earliest stages of the investigation into Wednesday evening’s collision along Reisterstown Road, which involved 12 vehicles and sent dozens of people — including the bus driver — to area hospitals.

The updated injury total marks an increase from the 30 victims initially reported in the immediate aftermath of the crash, which prompted officials to declare a mass casualty incident.

The bus was traveling along Reisterstown Road when it struck “several vehicles” before losing control and crashing into a commercial building in the 1500 block of the busy corridor, police said.

The crash occurred shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday and drew more than 100 first responders to a scene stretching from Old Court Road to McHenry Avenue.

Police said the bus driver suffered life-threatening injuries and was flown by Medevac to an area hospital.

Hospitals on Thursday provided the clearest picture yet of the injuries resulting from the crash.

Six victims were taken to University of Maryland Medical System facilities, according to spokesperson Michael Schwartzberg. Four were treated in emergency departments and released, while two patients were transported to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.

As of Thursday, all but one of those patients had been discharged.

Another 22 patients were treated at Sinai Hospital and Northwest Hospital — seven at Sinai and 15 at Northwest — according to LifeBridge Health spokesperson Sharon Boston.

The investigation continues.

The preliminary cause of the crash “will not be determined for some time as detectives are still in the early stages of their investigation,” Baltimore County Police Det. Trae Corbin told The Baltimore Sun in an email Thursday.

Questions also remain about the condition of the building struck by the bus.

The vehicle crashed into a structure occupied by a FedEx store in the heart of Pikesville’s commercial corridor. A Baltimore County Department of Permits, Approvals and Inspections official examined the site Thursday, according to county spokesperson Dakarai Turner, though the extent of the structural damage remains under investigation.

Structure examined, power restored

The building that the bus struck is occupied by a FedEx store, which officials said was unsafe to occupy. As of Thursday morning, workers were boarding up windows and still cleaning debris at the location.

The crash also knocked down a utility pole, prompting BGE crews to work through Wednesday night to make repairs.

A BGE spokesperson said Thursday there were no customer outages related to the incident and repair work was finished by the early morning hours.

As investigators worked Thursday to piece together the events leading up to the crash, state transit officials declined to provide details about either the bus or the driver.

Paul Shepard, a spokesperson for the Maryland Transit Administration, declined to answer The Baltimore Sun’s questions, saying everything had to go through Baltimore County Police.

Past collisions on Reisterstown Road

Over the past few months, a roughly four-mile stretch along Reisterstown Road extending from northwest Baltimore to Interstate 695 has been the site of numerous crashes.

In April, for instance, a car backed into the front of a beauty supply store in northwest Baltimore, just southeast of the city-county line.

Last December, a 22-year-old man driving south on Reisterstown Road was killed when his vehicle struck an SUV that was making a left turn from the Interstate 695 westbound exit ramp. At the end of that month, a Baltimore County Fire Department vehicle was involved in a rollover crash at the intersection of Reisterstown Road and Naylors Lane, which sent two people to the hospital.

Baltimore County Councilman Izzy Patoka, a Pikesville Democrat who lives about a mile away from the scene, was on Reisterstown Road when he saw emergency vehicles arriving at the crash.

Congestion and speeding have long been issues on the busy thoroughfare, a state highway where left turns are no longer allowed between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Though it’s unclear what caused the crash, Patoka believes the commercial corridor should be reconfigured to help with traffic flow and calming.

“There’s been discussion of a median, especially in that particular area, but there also needs to be some level of walkability that doesn’t really exist right now,” he said.

Sun reporter Racquel Bazos contributed to this article. 

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