The man who died in a collision involving two Duluth Transit Authority buses in downtown Duluth on April 14 had rushed forward “in an apparent attempt to help” the incapacitated driver of his bus moments before the crash, authorities said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, police said one person remained hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday following the early-morning crash on West Superior Street a week earlier. Eight other people were injured in the crash.

Investigators have interviewed witnesses and reviewed surveillance video - from on the buses and in the vicinity of the crash scene - to piece together the events that started just after 5 a.m. April 14. The man who died in the collision, Michael Joseph Mooney, 53, of Duluth, was a passenger on an eastbound bus and appears to have acted heroically as the bus driver lost control while traveling on Superior Street into downtown Duluth.

“During the time the bus was out of control, it was apparent by the reactions of the passengers on the bus that something was wrong with the driver,” a Duluth Police Department news release said. “Just prior to the crash, Mooney can be seen leaving his seat in the rear portion of the bus and (beginning) to rush forward in an apparent attempt to help the driver.”

Duluth police public information officer Ron Tinsley said Tuesday that the investigation is continuing; authorities still are working to determine what caused the driver to lose control of the bus. Police previously said the DTA bus driver, Rodney Frank Polson, 58, of Duluth, may have experienced a medical event that led to the bus going out of control.

Authorities said Tuesday that the eastbound bus traveled more than a quarter-mile under duress.

“This incident began when an eastbound DTA bus driven by Polson began to lose control causing it to drift slightly off the roadway on Superior Street just east of Mesaba Avenue,” the police news release reported.

The bus - No. 143, traveling a route coming from Gary-New Duluth - then drove on the center median in the 600 block of West Superior Street and struck a road sign while accelerating eastbound. It clipped a stop sign at Fifth Avenue West while continuing to accelerate, police said, and then had a major collision with a traffic signal pole on the other side of the intersection.

That collision “caused the bus to be redirected to the left, into and across the westbound lane of West Superior Street. The bus came to rest after crashing into the concrete barriers along the roadway.” The barriers form the perimeter of the Maurices headquarters construction site in the 400 block of West Superior Street.

There then was “a very minor collision” between the eastbound bus and a Proctor-bound DTA bus heading west on Superior Street, police said.

There were 17 people total on the two buses at the time of the crash, including the drivers; nine people were injured. The bus passenger remaining in a local hospital Tuesday was 58-year-old Jeanne Marie Doucette, Duluth police reported. Authorities said she was listed in critical condition.

Both bus drivers have been on administrative leave since the crash and “until we find out more that’s the way the situation will stay,” DTA general manager Dennis Jensen said Tuesday.

Jensen said the DTA was “sympathetic to the fact the family is grieving” and would not comment further on the new details released by police about what transpired on the eastbound bus immediately before the crash.

Mooney grew up in Illinois and served 10 years in the Marines, according to his obituary published in the News Tribune. After he was honorably discharged, he moved to Duluth in the 1990s.

Mooney had worked for Black Woods Group for 12 years, most recently downtown at Black Water Lounge and Greysolon Ballroom. He would have been heading to work at the time of the crash.

“He was one-of-a-kind,” Black Woods director of operations Julie Thoreson told the News Tribune last week - dedicated to his job, and dependable. “He knew all the inner workings of Greysolon Plaza; he kept things running there.”

Mooney is survived by his daughter, mother, four sisters and many nieces and nephews.

Visitation for Mooney is scheduled for 5-7 p.m. Tuesday at Dougherty Funeral Home, 600 E. Second St., Duluth. It will continue at St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, 325 E. Third St. in Duluth, from 9-10 a.m. Wednesday, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial.