Horrifying crash of bus into bridge kills 4, dreams

September 13, 2010|By STEPHANIE FARR, farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225
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  • Kevin Coffey (left), a 19-year-old Temple University student, was among four who died when a Megabus headed to Toronto slammed into a bridge (above). Investigations (below) continue.
  • Kevin Coffey (left), a 19-year-old Temple University student, was among four who died when a Megabus headed to Toronto slammed into a bridge (above). Investigations (below) continue.

Kevin Coffey, a Temple University sophomore, had never taken the double-decker Megabus from Philadelphia to Toronto.

Lee Veeraraghavan, a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, had taken it at least 20 times.

On Friday, the strangers boarded the Toronto-bound bus together in Philadelphia about 10 p.m. along with 26 other passengers.

For Coffey, it was the last trip he ever took. For Veeraraghavan, it was the one she will never be able to forget.

About 2:30 a.m., the 13-foot-high bus they were riding in crashed into a railroad bridge 10 feet, 9 inches highin Salina, N.Y., just outside of Syracuse, shredding the top deck of the bus and toppling it on its side.

Story continues below.

Among the four killed in the crash were Coffey, 19, a native of Kansas, and Deanna Armstrong, 18, from Voorhees, N.J., said Onondaga County Sheriff's Deputy Herb Wiggins.

"Her [Armstrong's] parents were en route from New Jersey to Syracuse Saturday night to identify her but they got too distraught and had to turn back," he said.

Armstrong was identified last night through dental records, Wiggins said.

Five others were seriously injured and remained hospitalized last night, including Carl Kerr, 51, and Mabel Tabb, 79, both of Philadelphia; a King of Prussia woman, Lo Wah Chu, 55; and the bus driver, John Tomaszewski, 59, of Bordentown Township, N.J., police said.

From Coffey's parents' home in Manhattan, Kan., family friend Amy Boxer said that Coffey, who was only two weeks into his second year at Temple, had planned his one-man trip to Toronto this summer "just to see the city."

"He was so excited to explore," she said. "He loved to see new places and meet new people."

Coffey, who was an Eagle Scout and enjoyed rowing and running, was in the Honors Program at Temple and was majoring in international business.

Boxer said that Coffey, was "an exceptional, honest, kind, smart and genuine" young man who was loved by many and who loved Philadelphia.

"He had a bright future ahead of him there," she said.

Lee Veeraraghavan, 27, the second-year Penn student, said that talking has been helping her to cope with the horrors she saw.

Veeraraghavan, an ethnomusicology major from Toronto, travels home once a month, usually by the double-decker Megabus, to see her husband and parents.

She said that she always sits in the bottom of the bus, in the back row on the driver's side, where she was sleeping Saturday when the crash happened.

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