Hacienda Heights, Ca. (May 22, 2015) – Survivors and the families of those killed in a fiery bus crash gathered in Hacienda Heights on Friday to hear details of the CHP’s investigation report into last year’s accident.
Five students, three chaperones and the drivers of each vehicle died in the April 10, 2014 crash after a FedEx truck driver veered across Interstate 5 in Orland and slammed into a tour bus carrying high school students from Southern California.
After a 13-month long investigation, CHP officials said they were unable to determine why the FedEx driver triggered the collision. The mystery of what caused the driver to lose control makes it difficult for survivors to move forward.
“I would have liked some sort of answer as to why this happened, but there isn’t one at the present moment,” Miles Hill told KPCC. “I can’t go on living my life knowing that ten people lost theirs, and they don’t know why,” he said. “That’s why I would say it’s important for me to know why this happened,” Hills told KPCC.
Hill’s attorney, Geoff Wells with the Santa Monica law firm, Greene Broillet & Wheeler, LLP told KPCC on Saturday that he appreciated how thorough and transparent the CHP was during the investigation.
“A big time scientist was down on his hands and knees with tweezers into the bushes looking for charred fragments of leaves or anything – the roots of the plants that were on the median – and came up with nothing,” Wells told KPCC.
“That’s an example of the type of work that went into the investigation of the accident, and that to me, you hear about it on TV, but in real life you don’t always see them doing that,” Wells added.
Wells along with fellow GBW partner Christine Spagnoli and associate Christian Nickerson filed a lawsuit on behalf of Hill against FedEx and Silverado Stages, the San Luis Obispo based operator of the bus, seeking unspecified damages.