Wayward bus kills restaurant helper, hurts 42 in Quezon accident
LUCENA CITY—A restaurant helper was killed and 42 others were hurt when a wayward Quezon City-bound passenger bus crashed into a roadside eatery along the Maharlika Highway in Sariaya town in Quezon province midnight on New Year’s Day, Friday.
A report released by Quezon Philippine National Police-public information office said the victim, Jessa Lagrazon Estimo, 19, was sleeping inside the Kabayan restaurant in Barangay (village) Sto. Cristo when the Raymond passenger bus (UWE-723) rammed into the left portion of the eatery around 12 p.m.
The report said the victim died on the spot while her co-helper, Joselito Malapitan Dimayuga, 45, sustained injuries.
Police said that 41 of the 56 bus passengers also suffered varying degrees of body injuries.
One of the passengers, Norelyn Lian Delfino Abayan, 9, and resident of Labo, Camarines Sur, sustained serious injury in her right hand that resulted to its amputation at the hospital.
Two other passengers, Isabel Porteriya Delosmo, 18, and Vilma Villamora Guevarra, 48, both had fractured hands, report said.
The wounded restaurant helper and bus passengers were all rushed to the Greg Hospital in the Sariaya town proper and to the Lucena United Doctors Hospital and Quezon Medical Center, both in Lucena City.
The report said a few minutes before the accident, the bus that came from Lagunoy, Camarines Sur and being driven by Leandro Deguito overtook a police car that was then conducting a routine patrol.
According to one of the policemen aboard the police car, Senior Police Officer 2 Ysmael Nocum, after the bus overtook their vehicle and returned to its lane, he saw the bus wobbled out of control and eventually hit the left side of the restaurant.
The lawmen immediately called rescuers from the local government who attended to the injured victims.
The bus driver was now held at the Sariaya police jail. RAM
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