Bus, car and truck crash injures 27 people near Syracuse

By Matthew Liptak SYRACUSE N.Y. (Reuters) - A tour bus slammed into a car abandoned by a drunken driver on Interstate 81 near Syracuse early on Thursday, then smashed into a tractor-trailer parked alongside the roadway, injuring 27 people, authorities said. Most seriously hurt was the driver of the Pine Hill Trailways tour bus, which was carrying 52 passengers from Toronto to New York City, the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office said. The driver was in serious but stable condition at a Syracuse hospital. The chaotic scene unfolded at about 2:30 a.m. in Onondaga, New York, outside Syracuse when the car hit a guard rail and came to a stop in the highway, the sheriff's office said in a statement. The driver of the tractor-trailer stopped on the side of the highway to flag the disabled car to oncoming traffic. The tour bus hit the car and then the truck. Ten ambulances arrived at the scene and transported the injured to area hospitals. It took emergency workers two hours to extricate the bus driver from the vehicle, where he was trapped with serious injuries to his lower body, authorities said. The car driver was found a short distance away and taken into custody for driving while intoxicated, the sheriff's office said. The tractor-trailer driver was unhurt. (Reporting by Matthew Liptak; Editing by Barbara Goldberg)