An investigation was underway after a Canadian tour bus overturned and slid down an embankment on a New Jersey interstate exit ramp Saturday morning, injuring 19 passengers including two children.
New Jersey state police Sgt. Adam Grossman says at least nine people were taken to hospital for nonlife-threatening injuries.
Several others were treated at the scene.
The bus, which left Toronto and was bound for New York City, was carrying 57 passengers including several children and an infant, according to authorities.
The Associated Press reported that the driver, who suffered a gash on his arm, told state police that he had been cut off by another vehicle just prior to the crash.
Police were called around 7: 45 a.m. after the chartered commercial bus with Ontario licence plates rolled over onto its side while on the Interstate 80 exit ramp in Wayne, New Jersey, about 25 kilometres northwest of New York City.
The crash caused some windows on the bus to shatter and the window frames pinned down three people, who were later freed.
A local newspaper quoted a hospital spokeswoman who categorized the injuries of eight of the people admitted to hospital as critical even though they were considered non-life threatening. Two young children were also treated for minor injuries.
"It was terrifying," Norma Cumberbatch, 66, of Toronto, told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
Cumberbatch, who was travelling with her 68-year-old sister, Marjorie, said she struggled to free her legs from fallen luggage and other debris before trying to find her sister.
"I just took my leg out and then said, 'Where's my sister? I want my sister."'
Marjorie Cumberbatch said she heard "thump, thump, thump. Then I looked up and I saw people over me screaming and crying."
A passenger told the Associated Press that at first, she didn't realize what was happening.
"I just hear the glass cracking, cracking and then I look I saw, I saw, my God, what is this? You know and I was laying on the floor," said the woman, who was not named.
Other witnesses reported seeing passengers waiting along the side of the exit ramp while they were being treated and several people wearing neck braces being loaded into ambulances.
The bus had been chartered by a group of Seventh Day Adventists who were headed to an event in Brooklyn.
Photos from the scene show the bus on its side at the bottom of the embankment that the ramp wraps around.
It was not immediately clear what caused the bus to flip over. The exit ramp was shut down for several hours after the crash.
