Boy, 8, leaves hospital, family returning to China

By Mary Manning

Published Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009 | 11:26 a.m.

Updated Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009 | 7:37 p.m.

An 8-year-old Chinese boy walked out of University Medical Center with his family Sunday afternoon, all of them bruised from Friday's tour bus crash. The Wu family planned to return to China in a couple of days.

The boy improved to fair condition Sunday as two other patients involved in Friday's fatal rollover crash south of the Hoover Dam in Arizona remained in critical condition at University Medical Center.

The parents of the boy were treated and released from Kingman Regional Medical Center on Saturday morning, UMC spokesman Rick Plummer said. They took a cab to the Las Vegas trauma center to be with their son, he said.

Also at UMC, a 40-year-old woman remains in critical condition, a 48-year-old man identified as the tour bus driver was upgraded from serious to fair condition, a 35-year-old woman was in critical condition and a 61-year-old man was in fair condition, Plummer said Sunday.

An 18-year-old woman and a 57-year-old man remained in serious condition at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, a spokeswoman said.

Lt. James Warriner of the Arizona Department of Public Safety said a six-member team from the federal National Transportation Safety Board arrived Saturday and met with state investigators to begin the task of piecing together the anatomy of the accident, which occurred at about 3:06 p.m. Las Vegas time 27 miles south of Hoover Dam.

Investigators said the bus veered to the right, overcorrected and crossed the barren median and turned over at least once into oncoming southbound traffic on U.S. 93.

Officials had hoped to release the identities late Saturday of the seven victims who died in the crash, but the Chinese consulate had not confirmed identities or contacted families, Warriner said.

Six of the bus passengers died at the scene Friday and one, a 50-year-old man, died at UMC on Friday.

The passengers' injuries included spinal and head injuries, and fractured bones, Plummer said.

None of the bus passengers spoke English, so initially a language barrier complicated efforts to identify, treat and accurately count the number of people riding the bus at the time of the crash, authorities said.

A deputy counsul general for the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles visited UMC to speak to those patients who were conscious, Plummer said.

The official Xinhua News Agency has said that the bus was carrying 15 people from a 20-member group that left mainland China and arrived in San Francisco on Jan. 24. The bus tour group visited Grand Canyon's West Rim and was returning to Las Vegas when the crash occurred.

The tour bus operator, DW Tour & Charter, of San Gabriel, Calif., has not responded to phone calls or e-mails.