Dozens Injured After Bus Slams Into Building, Other Vehicles

Rush-hour traffic in suburban Baltimore turned chaotic on Wednesday when a Maryland Transit Administration bus plowed into a building and multiple vehicles in Pikesville, injuring up to 33. Fire officials in Baltimore County said the crash on Reisterstown Road involved the bus and a dozen other vehicles, with two people initially trapped—one in the bus and one in a car, reports WBAL-TV. A medevac helicopter flew a critically injured patient to a hospital; all other injured parties were transported to hospitals shortly after 7pm.

WBFF reports that the building the bus hit was a FedEx Office building. A woman who was getting her nails done in a nearby spa on the basement level tells WBAL-TV that suddenly she heard "this huge shaking and booming." "At first we just thought maybe some shelving had fallen on the upper floor," she notes. The witness says that's when a spa employee went to check what was going on, then returned and said, "There's a bus [in] the side of the building ... that's the last thing you expect to hear."

Officials declared it a mass-casualty incident, bringing in 15 ambulances, medical buses from neighboring counties, and a Shock Trauma team. One car flipped onto its roof, multiple buildings were being checked for structural damage, and a utility pole was knocked down, though it was said that no customers lost power. Baltimore County Fire Chief Joseph W. Dixon called it a "war scene," per WTOP. WBAL-TV reports that Reisterstown Road remained closed both ways between Old Court Road and Sudbrook Lane as of early Thursday, according to the Maryland State Highway Administration.