Megabus Lawsuits

A South Jersey woman has filed suit after suffering head injuries last month in an Upstate New York bus crash that killed four people.

Candice Burks, 26, of Mount Laurel, was one of 28 passengers aboard a double-decker Megabus traveling from Philadelphia to Toronto on Sept. 11.

About 2:30 a.m., driver John Tomaszewski missed an exit to the Syracuse bus station and doubled back. Police said he was looking at a personal GPS device when he drove the 13-foot-high bus into a railroad bridge with only an 11-foot clearance.

About a dozen signs and flashing yellow lights lead up to the bridge, warning drivers of the height restrictions.

"When you have a bus going at full speed and it just stops on a dime like that, you're going to have people who are badly injured," said Burks' attorney, Shanin Specter.

Burks suffered head, neck, and back injuries, Specter said, that have left her with "significant cognitive impairments," including problems with attention and memory.

Specter, of Kline & Specter P.C., said a number of other passengers suffered injuries that varied from mild to severe. "The full extent of their injuries won't be known until later," he said. "Brain injuries and impairments can last for a lifetime and you just don't know after an accident how a person could end up."

Burks' negligence suit, filed Friday in Common Pleas Court, seeks more than $50,000 and is believed to be the first resulting from the crash. It names as defendants Tomaszewski, of Yardville, N.J., and two New Jersey bus companies: Coach USA of Paramus and Olympic Trails Bus Co. of Elizabeth.

Tomaszewski could not be reached for comment Friday. The president of Coach USA said he had not yet seen the complaint.

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