Oct 6, 2008 5:44 pm US/Pacific
Family Of Bus Crash Victim Talks To CBS13
WILLIAMS (CBS13) ―
An off-duty CHP officer who witnessed the recent crash of a casino-bound charter bus that killed nine says the driver swerved on Lone Star Road just six miles from the casino, hit the dirt, and flipped over
"I lost my mom. My mom stayed with me and now my mom gone. I love my mom," said Doua Vang, a victim's son.
Vang and his family came to a funeral home in Colusa to bring his mother's body back home to Sacramento.
Just minutes after the bus plunged into a drainage ditch off of Lone Star Road in Williams Sunday night his 68-year-old mother, Lou, called him.
"She said she got stuck, she can't get help," said Vang. "She kept saying like that and I ask her, 'were you out? What happened?'"
His mother never answered him. She died on the side of the road along with seven others.
"We have arrested the driver [who was] released back to the hospital because of his condition," said R.B. Kays, CHP officer.
Now charged with driving under the influence, authorities believe the driver, Quintin Watts, may have caused the crash.
"He was just wandering around and in a daze," said Kays.
Watts appeared intoxicated and was driving erratically, according to an off-duty officer who witnessed the crash.
"He had been weaving and going all the way across the shoulder on the opposite side of the road and then back again, several times," said Kays.
"I am angry but I don't know what's going on and what caused the accident," said Vang.
A ninth passenger who was injured in the crash died in the hospital Friday.
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