By MARTHA BELLISLE
The Associated Press
VIDEO FROM Peninsula Daily News news partner KOMO 4 TV in Seattle.
SEATTLE — Students and faculty, some arm in arm, filed into a private memorial service in a lecture hall at a Seattle college Friday to honor four international students killed when an amphibious tour vehicle struck their charter bus.
The victims came from different parts of the world and ranged from 17 to 49 years old. They were all new to North Seattle College and were set to begin classes next week.
They and dozens of other students were on a tour of Seattle landmarks when the crash occurred Thursday on a crowded bridge.
“As you know, the debris did clear early this morning, but at North Seattle College there are still wounds in our hearts, and it’s going to take a while for our students and employees
here to get through that,” the school’s president, Warren Brown, said at a news conference Friday.
“For someone to come from another country, to learn here, to be excited about an opportunity . . . and to have this tragedy occur, is painful.”
The four students were identified as Runjie Song, 17, of China; Privando Putradanto, 18, of Indonesia; Mami Sato, 36, of Japan; and Claudia Derschmidt, 49, of Austria, who was
in Seattle with her 15-year-old son.
Derschmidt’s son was not on the bus at the time of the crash, college spokeswoman Maria Lamarca Anderson said.
The international students were on a tour of landmarks such as Pike Place Market when a so-called duck boat ferrying tourists across the Aurora Bridge suddenly swerved into their oncoming charter bus. The crash also injured dozens of people.
Student Cassandra Miller, who carried white carnations into the memorial, said the accident was “sad, especially for the parents in other countries.”
The crash has shaken the diverse school of about 14,000 students, Brown said.
“It’s particularly painful for us knowing that the students who were on the bus were just about to start the school year Monday,” he said.
Meanwhile, a family from Fremont, California, that was on the duck boat said they were thankful for the people who rushed to their aid.
Thirty-year-old Katie Moody, who suffered a broken clavicle, spoke to reporters from her hospital bed. The Moodys were in Seattle for a family birthday.
“Hearing the impact, that was the scariest part,” Katie Moody said.
Her father, 57-year-old Greg Moody, received cuts to his face.
“We were very fortunate, very fortunate, and I thank God for that,” he said as he stood by his daughter’s bed.
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SEATTLE (AP) — The so-called duck boat was ferrying tourists across a crowded Seattle bridge when, suddenly, the amphibious vehicle swerved into an oncoming charter bus carrying foreign exchange students on their way to an orientation event.
The resulting crash killed four people, injured dozens of others and raised safety questions about the distinctive former military vehicles popular with tour groups across the country.
Rujia Xie and other North Seattle College students were on their way to the city’s iconic Pike Place Market and Safeco Field for new student orientation events Thursday when she experienced the crash from the back of the bus.
She smelled gas and felt glass falling on her face. She and others jumped from the bus.
Traveling in the opposite direction, two Philadelphia friends on a road trip across the country, Brad Volm and Bradley Sawhill, were cruising over picturesque Lake Union when they said they saw the duck boat’s left tire “lock up” as it swerved into the charter bus, T-boning it.
Their SUV hit another truck head-on, but they escaped injuries.
“It all happened so fast. I got out of my car, and there were just bodies, just everywhere. People lying in the street,” Volm said.
The amphibious vehicle is operated by a tour company called Ride the Ducks, which offers tours known for exuberant drivers and guides who play loud music and quack through speakers as they lead tourists around the city.
The collision on the Aurora Bridge, which carries one of the city’s main north-south highways over the lake, left a tangled mess of twisted metal, shattered glass and blood, witnesses said.
North Seattle College issued a statement Thursday evening saying that four of its students died in the crash.
Spokeswoman Melissa Mixon said 45 students and staff were on one of two charter buses traveling downtown.
Authorities say 51 people were taken to area hospitals. Susan Gregg, a spokeswoman for Harborview and the University of Washington medical centers, released a statement early Friday that gave the conditions of some of them.
At Harborview Medical Center, one person is in critical condition and 11 are in serious condition in intensive care, Gregg said. Three others are in satisfactory condition, she said.
At the University of Washington Medical Center, two people are in serious condition, Gregg said, and two are in satisfactory condition at Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, she said.
The stretch of highway where the accident took place reopened for traffic about 11 p.m. Thursday, the state Transportation Department said. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team of 17 people to Seattle, and Mayor Ed Murray said they were taking over the investigation.
There was no immediate word about the cause of the crash, which involved a military-style tour bus that can also be operated on water. Initial reports described the accident as a head-on collision.
Three dozen people were on board the duck boat, as well as the driver, who is certified by the Coast Guard and a licensed commercial driver, company President Brian Tracey said. He said he did not know what happened or caused the crash.
“We will get to the bottom of it,” he told The Associated Press. “Our main concern right now is with the families of those hurt and killed.”
Murray said the company had taken the duck boats off city streets for now.
Tourists on board the duck boat told reporters they were snapping pictures when they say they were thrown from the vehicle.
Lying in his hospital bed, Tim Gesner, 61, of Orlando, Florida, told The Seattle Times that he was standing in the back of the duck boat and trying to take a picture.
He felt the vehicle start to fish-tail, and the driver said, “Oh, no.” Gesner looked forward and saw the duck boat veering left, directly into the bus.
“Then next thing was it’s like you see in the movies,” he told The Times.
“I was floating in this surreal world, like I was in slow motion bouncing off of things and just feeling the pain shooting everywhere and then my face slamming against the seat in front of me and then it was quiet.”
The foreign students are from different countries. Efforts are underway to contact their consulates, Murray said.
Witnesses described hearing a loud screech and then seeing injured people lying on the pavement or wandering around in a daze.
Nurse Jahna Dyer was walking across the bridge when she came upon the scene.
Dyer jumped a railing separating the sidewalk from the roadway and helped stabilize an injured man’s neck. She said She also helped a woman who had a cut lip and glass in her eye, Dyer said.
