Lawsuit Filed After Boston Bus Accident Injures PA Student

Attorney Jim Ronca filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of a young man seriously injured in the recent Calvary Coach bus crash in Boston.

When driver Samuel J. Jackson failed to obey caution signs and crashed a bus full of high school students into an highway overpass, 16-year-old Matthew Cruz suffered severe injuries to his head and back. Several of Cruz's vertebrae were fractured and one vertebrae was shattered, sending bone fragments into his spinal canal. He has had at least 15 hours of surgery to set his fractured bones with pins, rods, and a cage to replace one of his vertebrae.

“Matthew remains in Boston Medical Center and has been very sick with pneumonia and the doctors are dealing with that now,” Ronca said. “He cannot voluntarily move his legs and has only very minor reflex movement. He is still intubated.”

Four people were hospitalized and more than 30 passengers were injured when the charter bus slammed into the Western Avenue Bridge on February 2. The bus was well over the 10-foot height limit, and the impact of the collision crushed the bus’s roof and trapped some passengers in the wreck for more than an hour.

Ronca was compelled to file the suit immediately because crash reconstruction experts were denied access to the bus to collect evidence. “We are filing a complaint and having a subpoena issued so our accident reconstruction can move forward,” he said. Ronca filed the suit in the Commonwealth Court in Philadelphia on behalf of Cruz and his mother Megan Cruz.