Earl Neikirk / Bristol Herald Courier via AP

Emergency personnel attend to the injured after a car veered into paradegoers in Damascus, Va., on Saturday, injuring dozens.

DAMASCUS, Va. -- An elderly driver plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a Saturday parade in a small Virginia mountain town and investigators were looking into whether he suffered a medical emergency before the accident.

About 50 to 60 people suffered injuries ranging from critical to superficial, but no fatalities were reported. Three of the worst injured were flown by helicopter to area hospitals. Their conditions weren't immediately available.

Another 12 to 15 victims were taken to hospitals by ambulance and the rest were treated at the scene, where some paramedics and other first-responders were participating in the parade.

It happened around 2:10 p.m. during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line about a half-hour drive east of Bristol.

Damascus Police Chief Bill Nunley didn't release the driver's name or age but said he was participating in the parade and he had traversed the Appalachian Trail in the past. Multiple witnesses described him as an elderly man.

Nunley said the man's 1997 Cadillac was one of the last vehicles in the parade and the driver might have suffered an unspecified medical problem when his car accelerated to about 25 mph and struck the crowd on a two-lane bridge along the town's main road. The driver was among those taken to hospitals.

"It is under investigation and charges may be placed," Nunley said.

Witnesses said the car had a handicapped parking sticker and it went more than 100 feet before coming to a stop.

"He was hitting hikers," said Vickie Harmon, a witness from Damascus. "I saw hikers just go everywhere."

Amanda Puckett, who was watching the parade with her children, ran to the car, where she and others lifted the car off those pinned underneath.

"Everybody just threw our hands up on the car and we just lifted the car up," she said.

Keith Neumann, a hiker from South Carolina, said he was part of the group that scrambled around the car. They pushed the car backward to free a woman trapped underneath and lifted it off the ground to make sure no one else was trapped.

"There's no single heroes. We're talking about a group effort of everybody jumping in," he said.

Nunley cited quick action by police, firefighters, paramedics and hikers to tend to the victims, including a volunteer firefighter who dove into the car to turn off the ignition. The firefighter, whose name wasn't released, suffered minor injuries.

Mayor Jack McCrady encouraged people to attend the festival on Sunday, its final day.

"In 27 years of this, we've never had anything of this magnitude, and is it our job to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

McCrady said a donation fund was being set up to assist the injured, some of whom don't have medical insurance.

"We want to make sure they don't suffer any greater loss than they already have," he said. 

Eugene Tanner / AP

Firefighters look over the wreckage of a small helicopter that crashed near the intersection of Fort Street and Beretania Street in downtown Honolulu on Wednesday, May 8, 2013.

HONOLULU — A small helicopter lost power and came crashing down from 3,000 feet onto a busy downtown Honolulu street Wednesday afternoon, but no one was seriously injured, authorities said.

"It's a pretty miraculous situation that no one was badly hurt by this," said Capt. Terry Seelig, a spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department. "This is a pretty busy area."

The helicopter was on a photography flight when it lost power, forcing a crash landing on Fort Street, which is home to a large apartment complex and Hawaii Pacific University. The area is usually full of university students and downtown office workers and has a lot of vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

The chopper ended up along a curb, badly damaging a parked car, Seelig said. A fire station is also on that street, so firefighters who heard the crash ran out to help.

Eugene Tanner / AP

Authorities talk to Julia Link, who was piloting the helicopter that crashed in downtown Honolulu on Wednesday.

The pilot, Julia Link, told KITV everything seemed normal until all of a sudden it got quiet and the engine quit. Repeatedly training for this type of scenario helped her bring the helicopter to the ground, she said.

"First I thought it was a joke, and then, I was like, 'Oh my God, this is for real," said the 30-year-old.

She was grateful the problems developed when the aircraft was 3,000 feet above ground, as that gave her a lot of time to plan their descent.

Link said she's glad everyone walked away alive and no one was seriously hurt.

The 71-year-old male passenger was treated at the scene for minor injuries to his head, Honolulu Emergency Services spokeswoman Shayne Enright said.

The chopper was operated by Mauna Loa Helicopters. Representatives of the company couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Preliminary information indicates the Robinson R22 Beta had an engine failure, said Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

KVOA

Five people were killed late Saturday when an SUV crashed near Tucson, Arizona.

Five people were killed - including a young boy - and 13 injured late Saturday when an SUV rolled over southeast of Tucson, authorities said.

Arizona Department of Public Safety officials said preliminary investigations suggested 18 people were traveling inside the Chevrolet Tahoe at the time of the accident at Interstate 10 and Arizona State Route 83.

"Preliminary reports indicate that the driver of the Tahoe lost control on the exit ramp and rolled the vehicle resulting in multiple fatalities and injuries," according to a Customs and Border Protection statement.

The fatalities included a young boy, NBC station KVOA reported.

"You could see vehicle parts all over," Rincon Valley Fire District Assistant Chief Lee Bucklin told KVOA. "There were people thrown all over the place."

Citing a statement from Customs and Border Protection, KVOA said Border Patrol agents had tried to stop the vehicle on westbound Interstate 10 around 11 p.m. local time on Saturday but the vehicle had kept going.

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:57 AM EDT

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.

Nevada Highway Patrol / AP

Jean Soriano, 18, has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in a southern Nevada crash that killed five members of a California family and injured the suspect and three other people.

Five members of a Southern California family were killed in southern Nevada when their van was rear-ended by an 18-year-old driver who was later arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, authorities said.

The five dead were among seven family members who were in the van, authorities said. The other two — the 40-year-old female driver and a 15-year-old boy — were hospitalized in critical condition.

The van was carrying a couple, their children and some aunts and uncles, he said. Killed were three men in their 40s, a teenage female and an adult female.   

Jean Soriano of California was booked into the Clark County Detention Center after he was treated and released at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Loy Hixson said.

The crash happened at about 3 a.m. Saturday on Interstate 15 near the Utah line. Soriano's sport utility vehicle struck the van from behind, causing both vehicles to spin out of control and roll near Mesquite, some 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, investigators said.

A 23-year-old passenger in Soriano's SUV was treated at the hospital and released.

Authorities believe Soriano was returning from a visit with family in Utah to his home in California at the time of the wreck, Hixson said. They didn't immediately release his hometown or the names or hometowns of the victims.

Beer bottles were found in the SUV, Hixson said, and troopers performed a blood-alcohol test on Soriano at the hospital. The results won't be known for a couple of weeks, he said.

Hixson said only two of the seven people in the van were wearing seat belts. The five who were not buckled in were ejected, but one survived.

"Unfortunately, so many in the van weren't wearing seat belts, and some might have survived had they been wearing them," Hixson said. "We see it so many times where people can survive simply by having a seat belt on."

SEATTLE -- A suspected drunken driver slammed into a family crossing the street in a residential Seattle neighborhood, critically injuring a baby and his mother and killing his grandparents, authorities said. The grandparents had recently moved from the Midwest to be near the newborn child. 

Karina Schulte, 33, and her 10-day-old son were in critical condition Tuesday afternoon, said Liz Hunter, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Grandparents Dennis Schulte, 66, and Judith Schulte, 68, died at the scene Monday.

Judith Schulte's sister, Susan Morton, said the retired Indiana couple were walking Monday afternoon with their daughter-in-law and the baby when they were stuck.

Karina Schulte "had the baby in a sling on the front. He just hit all four of them," said Morton, of Cottonwood, Minn., in a telephone interview.

Mark Mullan, 50, was ordered held on $2.5 million bail during a court hearing Tuesday. He is being held on investigation of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. Prosecutors have until Thursday to formally charge him.

In court documents, a Seattle police officer investigating the crash said he smelled alcohol on Mullan's breath and that Mullan showed impairment during sobriety tests. A preliminary test showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.22 percent, nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08, the officer said in court documents.

No valid license
Mullan told police he was unable to see the pedestrians at an intersection in a residential neighborhood because the sun was in his eyes, according to court documents.

His license was suspended at the time of the crash, according to the documents.

"He does not have a valid license," said Brad Benfield, a spokesman with the Department of Licensing.

It was unclear Tuesday whether Mullan had legal representation. A message left with an attorney who represented him in a drunken driving case in December was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Mullan didn't answer reporters' questions as police led him away from the scene of the crash in handcuffs Monday. Police said he stopped after the crash and was cooperative. A phone number listed for Mullan was disconnected.

Morton said Karina Schulte, who is from Chile, is a pediatric nurse specialist and is dedicated to her work.

Dennis and Judith Schulte were both longtime high school teachers; she taught English and was a head guidance counselor for years, while he taught math.

They had moved to Seattle from Kokomo, Ind., in February to witness the birth of their first grandson.

They had planned to spend six months in Seattle to be near their son and his family. They were renting an apartment near the intersection where they were killed.

"They were so elated. This is their only grandchild," Morton said. "They wanted to be there when he was born. They got to hold him and be there with him for 10 days."

Related:

Police: Drunk driver causes 15 crashes, kills woman, smashes into restaurant

4 dead, 8 injured after driver crashes into Las Vegas bus stop

Curbing drunken drivers: Should ignition interlock be required on every car?

Scott R. Galvin / AP

Mindy Morgan reads a note at the memorial where six teens were killed in a car crash on Park Ave. in Warren, Ohio on March 10.

An Ohio town was in mourning on Sunday after a single-car crash took the lives of six teenagers, the deadliest car accident the Buckeye State has seen in three years.

Around 7 a.m. local time, a sport utility vehicle carrying eight people in Warren, Ohio veered to the left, hit a guardrail and flew out of control, according to Ohio State Highway Patrol.  The car came to rest in a pond, and only two of the teens were able to escape and find help.

Killed in the crash were 19-year-old Alexis Cayson, 14-year-old Andrique Bennett, 17-year-old Brandon Murray, and 15-year-olds Kirklan Behner, Daylan Ray, and Ramone White.

All the victims were from Warren, Ohio, about 60 miles east of Cleveland.

Brian Henry, 18, and Asher Lewis, 15, survived and were taken to a local hospital and later released.

Authorities say the Honda Passport was traveling at "highway speeds" when the driver hit the guard rail on a street where the speed limit is 35 mph. Some of the occupants were wearing seat belts, though it is unclear how many. The SUV only has five seats.

Tom Sheeran / AP

A Honda Passport that crashed into a guardrail and flipped over into a swampy pond Sunday morning in Warren, Ohio, killing six teenagers.

The teens were all friends, but investigators say it is still unclear where they were coming from or going to. At a press conference Sunday night, State Highway Patrol Lt. Brian Holt said, “none of the occupants of the vehicle had expressed permission to be in possession of the vehicle.” The car's owner lives in nearby Youngstown, Ohio, though the automobile had not been reported stolen. Police said it is unclear at this time what the connection is between the vehicle owner and the teens.

Police also declined to speculate on drug use or alcohol pending the results of a toxicology report.

As news spread of crash, mourners throughout the community visited the scene of the accident to grieve. Along with the grief came questions of how it happened and why the victims were out at the early hour.

A local school where several of the teens attended was opened to the community to come for counseling. Counselors will be on hand Monday as well as students return from the weekend.

“It’s going to be a rough week, a rough rest of the school year,” said Michael Notar, Warren school superintendent.