One bus driver took going green to a whole new level this week, filling his gas tank with a thousand pounds of pot.

Customs and Border Protection officers near San Diego discovered the stash hidden inside a commercial bus in line to cross at the San Ysidro port of entry.

A 56-year-old Mexican citizen was waiting with the bus, according to border officials. An officer sensed something was off, and a detection dog confirmed the suspicion. An imaging system revealed oddities with the bus's gas tank.

Read the original story on NBCSanDiego.com

CBP officers searched the bus and found 110 packages of marijuana inside the tank, according to officials. They weighed 1,071 pounds and have an estimated street value of $482,000.

Officers took the driver into custody.

SAN FRANCISCO — A tour bus carrying visitors from Yosemite National Park was traveling at an unsafe speed when the driver lost control and crashed on a mountain road, leaving 16 people injured, the California Highway Patrol said Sunday.

The bus was about six miles outside of the south entrance of the park when it went off Highway 41, a winding mountain road when it crashed about 6 p.m. Saturday. It came to a stop when it hit a tree, CHP Officer Scott Jobinger said.

Fifteen passengers and a tour guide suffered minor to moderate injuries.

"At this point the cause was the bus was traveling at unsafe speed and went off the road," Jobinger said. He said the accident remained under investigation to determine if other factors played a role.

CHP Sgt. Edward Green told the Fresno Bee that the impact of the crash caused several passengers to be thrown to the driver's side of the bus, with the bus stopping when it hit the tree.

"If the tree wasn't there to stop the bus, it would have continued down the ravine," Greene said.

The 15 injured passengers, described as mostly elderly, and a tour guide were taken to local hospitals for treatment.

Four of the injured were treated at Community Regional Medical Center, and four were treated at Clovis Community Medical Center, said Jennifer Avila-Allen, a spokeswoman for the hospitals. All but one at Community Regional had been released, she said. The conditions of the others, taken to a different hospital, were not known.

The bus was towed to an impound yard where it will be inspected to see if any mechanical problems may have contributed to the crash, Jobinger said.

The bus driver, identified as Changefeng Liu, 49, of Fremont, Calif., was the only person on the bus who was not hurt. He has not been arrested, and alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash.

Investigators have not determined the exact speed of the bus at the time it went off the roadway, but the scenic highway has sharp curves where the speed limits drop to 35 miles per hour, Jobinger said.

The bus is operated by Seven Happiness Tour & Charter, a Burlingame, Calif.-based company that specializes in providing tours to the Chinese-American community, said Charles Wu, who works at the company and answered the phone at its headquarters Sunday. He said the owner would not be available to comment until Monday.

"Most of them (passengers) were Chinese people from the Bay Area," Wu said.

Wu said he had not talked to the bus driver since the crash and have few details about the incident, but said Liu had worked for the company for about six years.

Liu could not be reached for comment.

The tour bus company, which operates six motor coaches and six mini-buses or vans, has not had any crashes in the last 24 months, according to records with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

A tour bus crashed off an embankment near Yosemite National Park, leaving 16 people with minor injuries, California Highway Patrol said.

The bus was about 40 miles south of the park when the accident occurred around 6 p.m. Saturday, the Merced Dispatch office said.

Of the 17 people on board, 16 were transported to local hospitals, the patrol said.

No further details were immediately available.

At least two people were killed and 36 injured Thursday when a bus carrying people to a casino overturned on a highway outside Dallas, authorities said.

The crash happened in the Dallas suburb of Irving. Video from NBC affiliate KXAS showed crews working to free trapped passengers and carrying people away on stretchers.

“People were screaming, on top of each other,” Dan Risik, who identified himself as a passenger on the bus, told KXAS. “I was on top of a friend of mine, and a woman was on top of me on my leg. I couldn’t move up, or what have you, until help arrived and they climbed through the windows.”

Risik said the bus was headed to Choctaw Casino Resort, just over the Oklahoma state line and about 90 miles from Dallas. Many of the passengers were elderly, Risik said.

Lm Otero / AP

Emergency responders works the scene of bush crash on the George Bush Turnpike on April 11, in Irving, Texas.

Lonny Haschel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, confirmed the two deaths to KXAS. Rusty Wilson, the assistant fire chief of Irving, said 36 were injured. About an hour after the crash, Haschel said it was not clear whether passengers were still trapped inside.

The bus veered out of the northbound lanes of a state highway, struck a rubber roadside barrier, skidded back across the highway, hit a concrete barrier on the other side and overturned, Haschel said. The bus carved deep skid marks into the grass in the median and came to rest on its passenger side.

Ed Cluck said he helped pull a number of people from the bus before rescuers arrived.

“It was pretty bad, people screaming. There was obviously a lot of pain,” Cluck said. “You could see the people that were obviously in very bad pain and shape and you just couldn’t get to them because there were other people on top of them.”

The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched regional investigators to the scene of the accident.

Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas said it received 15 people transported from the crash. Las Colinas Medical Center in Irving said it was treating six passengers.

Dr. Alex Eastman, a trauma surgeon at Parkland, said that the patients ranged in age from about 66 to 80 years old. Four patients in critical condition were taken to Parkland. All of the patients in critical were talking when they arrived, Eastman said.

Authorities closed the highway and a nearby toll booth and set up a command center in the parking lot of a nearby bank. The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators.

KXAS reported that Irving fire officials ordered all their trucks to help.

NBC News' Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

KXAS

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:50 AM EDT

NEW YORK CITY -- A Greyhound bus bound for New York City had to pull over and evacuate Friday because it was infested with roaches that dropped from the ceiling and skittered across seats and the floor, terrorizing riders.

Mothers tried to shield their children and riders jumped into the aisle of the bus as roaches bolted out of cracks and crevices, seemingly all at once, about 15 minutes after the 10 a.m. ET bus left Atlantic City, passengers told NBC 4 New York.

"All of a sudden the roaches came out of nowhere, they were on the floor, they were falling from the ceiling," said Andy Rodriguez, a passenger.

Tracy Harmon told NBC 4 New York that "people were shrieking and shaking roaches off."

"It was terrible," she said.

The bus was carrying 48 people and an unknown number of roaches, according to Greyhound.

Read more news on NBCNewYork.com

"Once the driver became aware of the situation, the driver followed procedures by pulling the bus over to a safe location and notifying our dispatch office," Greyhound spokesman Timothy Stokes said.

A second bus was sent to pick up the passengers, and they later arrived at Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Greyhound said the company apologizes and has refunded the trip for all the passengers.

In the aftermath of the tour bus collision near Los Angeles that left at least seven people dead and another 38 injured, investigators and witnesses were still piecing together the grim details on Monday.

The collision, which occurred at about 6:30 p.m. PST Sunday on Highway 38 near Mentone, Calif., about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, involved the tour bus carrying 39 passengers, a truck and a sedan, officers with the California Highway Patrol said.

“It happened so fast, I don’t know how it all happened,” one passenger told the San Bernadino Sun. “This was supposed to be a good day out with my companions and then this happened.”

A victim’s family member identified many of the passengers from Tijuana, Mexico, who were returning from a skiing and snowboarding trip at the Big Bear Mountain Resort when the bus began swerving.

Surviving passengers aboard the bus said they heard noises they thought were the breaks and smelled something burning and then watched in horror as the bus weaved in and out of traffic for up to three minutes, trying to avoid cars, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

“I saw a headlight in my rear-view mirror,” Betty Harvey, a witness, told NBCLosAngeles.com. “I moved over and he went flying past. He was swerving all the way down.”

The bus hit a car, then flipped, flinging some passengers 20 feet away from the bus. There was significant damage to the passenger's side of the bus, Ronald Walls, a battalion chief at the San Bernardino County Fire Department, said.

Passengers said the bus driver was stuck under a rock, before he was rescued. CHP Officer Mario Lopez said the driver told investigators the bus suffered brake problems as it headed down the mountain.

Firefighters worked to extricate people from the bus and emergency crews set up triage areas in a "mass casualty" situation, Eric Sherwin, with the San Bernardino County Fire Department told NBCLosAngeles.com

California Department of Transportation spokeswoman Michelle Profant said the scene after the crash was shocking. 

"It's really a mess up there with body parts," Profant told The Associated Press. 

Terri Kasinga of the California Department of Transportation described the crash as the worst she's seen in 23 years working for the agency, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

Nick Ut / Associated Press

San Bernardino investigators examine wreckage on Feb. 4 after a tour bus accident in the Southern California mountains near San Bernardino. The accident killed at least 8 people on Sunday.

CHP officials said there was concern the death toll could rise because some passengers sustained life-threatening injuries. Exact ages of the injured and dead were not immediately known.

The CHP was still on the scene Monday, attempting to determine what led to the deadly crash.

“Speed was probably a factor,” CHP Officer Mario Lopez told NBCLosAngeles.com. “We do not know if there was a mechanical failure or driver error. That’s what investigators at the scene are going to determine.”

Lopez said the bus is owned by Scapadas Magicas LLC, which is based in National City, Calif., and is also listed in Tijuana, Mexico.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday they sent a team to investigate the crash.

Updated at 5:25 p.m. ET: LOS ANGELES -- A scrawny Georgia teen who was discovered at a bus station told police his abusive stepfather gave him $200 and a list of homeless shelters before he was put on a bus to Los Angeles on this 18th birthday, authorities said Thursday.

Retired Los Angeles police Sgt. Joe Gonzalez was working security at a downtown bus station Sept. 11 when he spotted Mitch Comer, who stood just over 5 feet tall, weighed 87 pounds and looked much younger, the LAPD said in a news release Thursday.

The teen told Gonzalez his stepfather declared that he was now a man before putting him on a bus.

Paul Matthew Comer is seen in an undated photo provided by the Paulding County Sheriff's Office.

Investigators in Paulding County, Ga., planned to search at the home where authorities allege the teen was kept in such seclusion that his two younger sisters in the same house did not know what he looked like.

"The sisters haven't seen the brother in over two years," Paulding County sheriff's Cpl. Ashley Henson said. "They didn't even know what color his hair was."

Stepfather Paul Comer and mother Sheila Comer face charges of false imprisonment and cruelty to children, Paulding County jail records show. They were being held without bond.

Police described him as "pale" and "gaunt" and said they believed he was around 12 or 13 years old at first. Concerned about his age, they decided to investigate further.

Sheila Comer is seen in an undated photo provided by the Paulding County Sheriff's Office.

"The LAPD officer said his skin was translucent, that he was obviously malnourished," Los Angeles District Attorney Dick Donovan told WSB-TV in Atlanta. 

The 18-year-old told authorities that he had suffered years of abuse. After removing him from school in the eighth grade, his stepfather shut him in a room, he said.

The youth was fed only small amounts of food and forced to hold a grueling disciplinary position for eight hours a day with the top of his head against a wall, his fingers interlaced behind his head, and his feet raised off the ground.

'Heartbreaking circumstances'
The teen told police he had two younger sisters still living at home, but he did not know his address. LAPD contacted local Paulding County, Georgia, sheriff's deputies, who tracked down his stepfather and mother and took them in for questioning.

The parents were subsequently arrested on child abuse and false imprisonment charges. Detectives also put the teen's younger sisters, aged 11 and 13, into protective custody with Paulding County Children's Services.

After staying in a Los Angeles board and care home, the 18-year-old flew to Georgia on Wednesday to help in the investigation and legal proceedings against his parents.

"I am greatly relieved and thankful that one of our retired officers brought this victim to our attention and started the process to uncover these heartbreaking circumstances," Police Chief Charlie Beck said in a statement.

Dion Walker and Mea Smith, who live near the family in Dallas, Ga., told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution their children had played with the teen's sisters. 

"Maybe, when the young girls would stare at us, were they trying to say something?" Walker said according to the Journal-Constitution. "Should we have noticed?"

Monica Moore, an investigator with the Paulding County district attorney's office, accompanied the 18-year-old home from California and described him to WSB-TV as small and very timid, but exceedingly polite.

"I made sure that he knew that ... once he came here he had a lot of people here helping," she told WSB-TV.

Donovan told the station his office struggled to find an agency willing to take in the teen because he is legally an adult, but a local family agreed to house him.

NBC News's Sevil Omer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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