Driver remains in serious condition
A charter bus driver from Masontown involved in an accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike Thursday morning remained in serious condition at Lancaster General Hospital on Friday, according to a hospital spokesman. Timothy Berkshire, 49, was driving a charter bus with 29 students on it on the turnpike in Chester County when the bus and a tractor-trailer truck driven by a Brownsville man collided around 4:30 a.m. Thursday.
The crash occurred about 35 miles outside of Philadelphia. Police identified the tractor-trailer driver as 58-year-old Willie Robert Ruff, who was not injured.
Berkshire was driving the students, from Elizabeth Forward School District in Allegheny County to Wildwood, N.J., for a band competition. Police said that others were injured, but Berkshire sustained the most serious injuries. He had to be cut from the wreckage and was flown to the hospital for treatment.
Police said the accident occurred when Ruff pulled out of a pull-off area and into the right, eastbound lane of the turnpike.
The truck was going about 40 mph when the bus slammed into the back of it at about 60 mph, police said.
T.A. Nelson Bus Line Inc. of Connellsville owns the bus.