At least 17 injured after bus crashes into car, building in Baltimore: officials

BALTIMORE -- At least 17 people were injured Saturday after a bus collided with two civilian vehicles in Baltimore, according to the Baltimore City Fire Department.

"Fortunately, there were no critical life-threatening injuries at this incident," Baltimore City Fire Department communications director Kevin Cartwright told CNN affiliate WJZ-TV.

Baltimore City Police told CNN the MTA bus collided with a Lexus at North Paca Street at West Mulberry Street in downtown Baltimore Saturday morning. The bus then struck a Nissan and came to a stop resting in a building at 500 West Franklin Street, police said.

Jerimiah Moerke, spokesperson for the Maryland Transit Administration, told CNN the agency's CityLink Blue bus was "involved in a multi-vehicle incident" at around 10.15 a.m.

"We dispatched units to this location, and upon their arrival they did confirm that there was a collision involving an MTA bus that collided into a building," Cartwright said, according to WJZ. "Due to that fact and multiple patients being involved, we established and escalated this to a level one mass casualty incident."

Responders removed the bus driver from the bus lodged into the building. The driver was treated at the scene and transported to a hospital, as were the other 16 injured people, according to Cartwright.

Police said the cause of the crash is unknown at this time.

MTA Police, the Baltimore City Fire Department and Medics and building inspectors are also on the scene, police said.

Video from WJZ shows the bus at a stop against the side of the building as emergency services respond.

Yellow crime scene tape was wrapped around the driver's side mirror of the damaged Lexus parked near a pole, and the vehicle's steering wheel airbag was deployed as the driver's door stood open, the video showed.

The front of the Lexus from the passenger's side appeared crushed as a nearby city worker swept debris from the crash off the streets, as seen in the video.

Cartwright said specialists from the fire department's special rescue operations team evaluated a four-story apartment building to ensure the structure wasn't compromised after the accident, WJZ reported.

"They determined that the steel vertical and horizontal beams that support the structure remained intact," he said, according to WJZ.

Only the apartment building's first floor was condemned and residents were expected to be able to return home by Saturday afternoon, Cartwright said.

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