Bucks County student Matthew Cruz returned to the Philadelphia area last week after spending nearly a month in a Boston hospital with serious injuries sustained in the Calvary Coach bus crash on February 2. As he continues to receive treatment for spinal cord injuries at Jefferson University Hospital, his attorney James Ronca is investigating why the bus crashed into a 10-foot high overpass despite abundant caution signs.
Although there is still no official cause of the crash, Ronca told NBC10 Philadelphia that he has launched his own investigation. He wants to know why driver Samuel Jackson didn’t exit the roadway in response to signs warning of the low-height overpass, when he had ample time to do so. “There was an exit just before the overpass that he struck that he could have gotten off, less than 200 yards,” Ronca told NBC10’s Deanna Durante.
Calvary Coach owner Ray Talmadge said that Jackson was looking at a GPS right before the bus slammed into the Western Avenue Bridge on Soldier’s Field Road. Both Jackson and Talmadge have not spoken to Ronca, who plans to examine the GPS, the wrecked bus and its electronic data recording.
Jackson was driving 33 students and nine chaperones home from a trip to Harvard University when the bus crashed into the bridge, peeling back the roof and trapping numerous passengers inside. Four people were hospitalized and more than 30 were hurt. Cruz suffered the most serious injuries, including fractured vertebrae and a shattered vertebra that sent pieces of bone into his spinal canal. He is likely to have permanent injuries as a result of the crash, Ronca said.
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