Three Israelis were moderately injured and ten were lightly injured in a bus accident in Haifa on Monday afternoon.

Dashcam footage revealed how the accident occurred. A driver in a private car was trying to switch lanes into the one the bus was driving and collided with the bus, causing the driver to lose control. The bus veered from its lane and onto the sidewalk, smashing streetlights and hitting several pedestrians.

The bus driver, a pedestrian, and one of the bus passengers are in moderate condition and the others are in light condition. All of the victims were fully conscious and suffering mainly from cuts and bruises.

Screams were heard at the scene and witnesses initially feared that there were many severely injured victims but b’chasdei Hashem, the accident was far less serious than what could have occurred from an out-of-control bus. The sidewalk where the bus swerved was Baruch Hashem relatively empty when the accident occurred.

The police announced that it “opened an investigation into the accident that occurred near the cemetery in Haifa, in which a bus driver apparently lost control and collided with several streetlights. According to medical officials from the scene, 13 injured people with varying degrees of injury were evacuated to the Bnei Tzion and Rambam medical centers in Haifa. Traffic police opened an investigation into the circumstances of the accident.”

A spokesperson of Israel Fire and Rescue Services stated that “firefighters from the Haifa station operated to cut off energy sources to prevent a fire from igniting and to assist the MDA at the scene of a traffic accident in Haifa.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)