Driver training “is generally quite good”, said Christian Holtz, a former Duck “captain” in Seattle who now works as a driver’s education instructor.
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But a local lawyer who represented a motorcyclist who says he was run over by a Duck in downtown Seattle four years ago warns the vehicles can be hazardous. A total of four other hospitals also were receiving patients from the crash as the Seattle medical community launched into mass casualty mode.
Board member Earl Weener said at a news conference Friday that it’s scrutinized the military-style vehicles several times when they’ve been in accidents on water.
North Seattle College released the names of three of the four students on the charter bus who died.
Mundell says wanted to help the injured but “felt helpless”.
Kathleen O’Toole, the Seattle police chief, said the bridge will be closed for “many, many hours”.
A spokesman for Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said the safety of duck boats “will obviously be reviewed and evaluated in the days to come”.
The crash happened on the busy Aurora Bridge, which carries one of the Washington city’s main north-south highways over a lake.
According to one witness, 23-year-old Brad Volm of Philadelphia, the Duck-boat “swerved” and crashed into the charter bus. He said officials were working to contact their consulates. A National Transportation Safety Board team arrived Friday to lead an investigation that typically takes a year, the agency said.
“The accident occurred when a charter bus traveling with the students collided with a “Ride the Ducks” tour vehicle”, Mixon said. Bulzomi said Tracey’s company didn’t agree to another of Porter’s requests, however: that Ride the Ducks hire separate tour guides so that drivers won’t be responsible for narrating tours while driving.
The crash has shaken the diverse school of about 14,000 students, Brown said.
A tour bus, right, and a chartered passenger bus, left, remain on the Aurora Ave.
A plant arrangement and a card are seen near the main entrance to North Seattle College, Thursday, September 24, 2015, after multiple students in the college’s worldwide program were killed when the charter bus they were ridin…
The vehicle, which consisted of two bus carriers connected in the middle with accordion-like flexibility to help in turns, plunged 50 feet, hit an apartment building’s roof in the Fremont neighborhood and ended up upright, albeit split in two.
Police and medics rushed to the scene at about 11:05 a.m. Thursday after receiving reports of a major collision. He said he did not know what happened or caused the crash.
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Twelve others were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries and others were treated on the scene for minor wounds, said Lt. Sue Stangl with the Seattle Fire Department. While there was no immediate official word about the cause of the crash, some noted the safety of the amphibious boats has been questioned before. “Joining forces on the issue even as they are bitterly divided on others, Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi will spotlight the shared determination of the leaders of the world’s two largest economies to forge a climate change accord in Paris in December that commits every country to curbing its emissions”.
