At least seven people were killed and many more seriously injured when a tractor-trailer hauling produce crashed head-on into a nearly full Greyhound bus on Interstate 40 near Thoreau on Thursday afternoon.
The bus, carrying 48 or 49 passengers, was heading from Albuquerque to Phoenix, with a final destination of Los Angeles. New Mexico State Police said that only six passengers on the bus were not injured.
Westbound lanes of I-40 were closed for hours while officers investigated the scene and road crews cleaned up the debris.
Wilson said that around 12:30 p.m., officers were called for the crash on I-40 near mile marker 50, about 100 miles west of Albuquerque.
When officers arrived, they found the wrecked vehicles on the road and in the median. The front half of the bus was destroyed. The cab of the truck was also destroyed, and its trailer was lying on its side.
Boxes of produce — witnesses identified broccoli and cauliflower — were strewn for yards.
Wilson said the preliminary investigation found that the truck was heading east when a tire blew out, causing it to cross the median and head into oncoming traffic. He said officers believe there were 48 people on the bus, but a Greyhound spokeswoman put the number of passengers at 49.
He said the driver of the truck sustained non-life-threatening injuries. He did not have any information on the people who were killed, including their ages, genders or where they were from.
Wilson said the National Transportation Safety Board will send a team to investigate along with the State Police traffic unit.
A spokeswoman for Greyhound said the company is cooperating with local authorities and will do its own investigation.
Thursday afternoon Wilson said four people had been killed but by 10 p.m. that number had risen to seven. It's unclear where the three additional people died.
The most seriously injured were taken by ambulance to the University of New Mexico Hospital.
Dr. Kevin Gaines, the acting chief medical officer of Gallup Indian Medical Center, said that hospital received the bulk of the patients, because it's the hospital closest to the crash. He said 20 people were brought in, four of whom were children.
He said that of the 20, four were taken to UNMH and one to a hospital in Arizona.
As of Thursday night, eight people were still at the medical center and seven had been discharged.
Gaines said the crash was the "largest mass casualty event" he has seen at the center.
A spokeswoman from Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services in Gallup said eight people were taken to that hospital and one of them was sent to UNMH. The rest are in stable condition.
Jesse Benge, a truck driver hauling strawberries and blueberries from California to North Carolina, said he was headed east on I-40 shortly after the crash occurred.
Benge said it was one of the worst crashes he has seen in his 35 years of driving.
Journal staff writer Matthew Reisen contributed to this report.