Oct 6, 2008 5:50 pm US/Pacific
Many Bus Crash Victims Were Laotian
SACRAMENTO (AP) ―
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Emergency responders had trouble communicating with the passengers because many spoke Lao.
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A tour bus lies in a water filled ditch after crashing on a rural two lane road near Williams, Calif., on Oct. 5, 2008.
Steve Yeater/AP
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The mud-covered bus was pulled from the ditch and was on a large tow truck.
CBS
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The bus completely rolled over landing upright.
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The roof of the bus collapsed.
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All the windows of the bus were broken out.
CBS
Almost every two weeks for the last two years, sisters Mai Cha and Ge
Vue boarded a chartered bus to play the slots at an American Indian
casino north of Sacramento.
The sisters were headed there again Sunday when the bus they were
riding on crashed, killing eight people and sending dozens to area
hospitals.
Many of the passengers were senior citizens and Laotian immigrants like Cha and Vue, who fled to Thailand in the 1970s after the Vietnam War, then moved to the United States.
"We are shocked. It's terrible," said Seng Her, the refugee project coordinator at the nonprofit Sacramento Lao Family Community Inc. Two of the group's employees and a member of its board lost family members in the crash.
About 190,000 members of Laotian ethnic groups live in the United States, with some 60,000 in California, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Family members and the adult children of some of the immigrants had raised concerns in the past about the chartered bus trips to the casino, which they said targeted senior Laotians living in Sacramento, Her said.
The bus fare for a day trip to the Colusa Casino Resort was cheap, around $10 at the most, and the casino gave passengers free slot play, according to family members and friends of the passengers.
"The riding conditions, most of the time they said it was unsafe," said Cha's son, Tou Xiong, 29, who spent Monday visiting her at a Sacramento hospital. "They say it's crowded and people sat in the aisles."
Despite those conditions, Xiong said, "I just think they never expected this to happen."
Cha's children searched frantically for 8 hours before they found the 74-year-old at a Sacramento hospital, suffering from a fractured rib, face and right wrist.
"We couldn't find her," said Xiong. "She came in as a Jane Doe. Her purse was lost in the accident and she did not have any ID."
Cha's sister, Ge Vue, 67, suffered cuts and bruises and was taken to another hospital.
Pa Phang, 37, whose father-in-law was killed, said she and her husband also discouraged their parents from taking the casino-bound buses.
"We have no idea how they get all the information because we often tell them 'Don't go to the casino. If you guys go we'll take you there,"' said Phang, who was visiting her mother-in-law at Enloe Medical Center in Chico.
The California Highway Patrol identified her father-in-law, Xee Hue Vang, as 85, but Phang said he was 87. Her mother-in-law, Maoly Yang, 75, was in critical condition Monday.
Phang said her in-laws liked to travel to the casino with their friends. Three of her friends lost their mothers in the bus crash, she said.
Five women identified as dead by authorities on Monday were in their 60s.
Many on the bus spoke little English, which complicated efforts by family members to find survivors who were taken to several area hospitals.
Don Kennedy, the casino's marketing director, said the bus was not scheduled to bring guests to the facility, but the casino accepts unscheduled visits from charter buses. Its Web site says the casino welcomes buses to visit for a minimum of four hours and lists a phone number for an operator called Cobb's Tours, among other bus companies.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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