A Metrobus collided with a fire engine on its way to an emergency call early Tuesday morning, sending the bus operator, a rider and a firefighter to the hospital.
The crash occurred about 1:06 a.m. near the Washington Highlands neighborhood in Southeast D.C. The W2 bus was turning left from Wheeler Road onto Valley Avenue when it collided with the DC Fire & EMS truck, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said.
The bus operator had a green light, Stessel said, but the fire truck had its lights and sirens on at the time. Like any vehicle, buses are supposed to yield to emergency vehicles.
“The preliminary internal review found that the bus operator yielded to a first fire truck, but may not have realized that there was a second truck approaching,” Stessel said.
The bus operator and one of the three riders aboard were taken to a local hospital with neck and back complaints that were not considered to be life threatening, he said. A firefighter on the truck also was injured.
It was not immediately clear if any traffic citations were issued in the crash. The District’s Metropolitan Police are investigating, while Metro is conducting an internal review as it does with all crashes.
Buses crash every day in the region, with an average of 6.8 Metrobus crashes per day. But few of them result in injuries, and even fewer are with vehicles that match up the Metrobus size. Think of Tuesday’s crash as the D.C. equivalent of a python versus an alligator in the Everglades.
