The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

WEST HAVEN, Vt. — A tour bus and a tractor trailer collided Friday night, drawing a large emergency response and sending multiple patients to the hospital, police said. The operator of the bus died as a result of his injuries.

According to a news release Saturday from the Vermont State Police, the trailer unit jackknifed and stopped, while the northbound commercial bus with 32 people on board crested the hill, lost control, and ultimately struck the trailer unit after contacting the guard rails. The accident happened in West Haven, located about 60 miles south of Burlington.

The road was closed for several hours, and traffic was rerouted while patients were transported to local hospitals and emergency personnel cleared the vehicles from the scene, police said.

Police added Saturday, "The bus driver was pinned within the bus and critically injured. Two passengers sustained moderate injuries and the remaining passengers all sustained minor injuries. Eight patients were transported to Porter Hospital in Middlebury and 24 patients, including the operator of the tractor trailer were transported to Rutland Regional Medical Center. The operator of the bus, identified as Darnell Hannah age 59 from Millstone N.J., died as a result of his injuries. The operator of the tractor trailer unit is identified as Haroon Kalid, age 34 from Scotrun, Penn."

The Vermont State Police treated the accident as a mass casualty incident, receiving assistance from several local fire and police departments.

The roads were ice-covered at the time of this accident and were a contributing factor in the collision, police said.

"If you don't have to travel, please don't," the state police in Williston wrote in an e-mail just after 10:40 p.m. Friday. "If you do have to travel, keep extra distance between vehicles, watch for emergency vehicles or move over if safe to do so." The road-condition website 511vt.com indicated "difficult" driving conditions across the entirety of northern Vermont on Friday night, and "fair" conditions to the south, including the location of the crash.