[img]http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=alastairjamieson01D60C41-4BD7-4044-E981-0CFA5BFC3807.jpg&width=600[/img]


At least one teenager was in a critical condition Sunday after a bus returning from a church summer camp crashed off an Indianapolis interstate, killing three people and injuring 19 others.

An investigation began into what caused the accident, which happened when the bus was minutes from the end of its journey.

Two of the dead were a husband and wife, NBC station WTHR reported.

Thirty-seven passengers were on the bus when it overturned Saturday afternoon, just a mile from the Colonial Hills Baptist Church where the bus was headed, according to The Associated Press.


Witnesses told police that the bus was exiting I-465 and trying to make a left onto southbound Keystone Ave. at a very high rate of speed, WTHR reported. The bus driver later told a witness that his brakes failed, WTHR said.

IU Health Methodist Hospital said it was treating three patients, all teenagers, one still in critical condition, it said in a statement.


Three people are dead and several more are critically injured after a bus returning from a church summer camp overturned outside Indianapolis. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health said it was is treating five patients, all teenagers in a good condition.

At the church, parents were waiting to pick up their children after a weeklong camp when news of the crash spread, sending parents scrambling to the scene.

Driver Duane Lloyd, who witnessed the crash, told WTHR: “I was going southbound… light turned green, and as I went through I heard a skid.”

“I stop and I see this bus in the air and people flying out of this bus… I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.

“People were stopping their cars and getting out and people were literally trying to lift the bus.”

Indianapolis Public Safety Director Troy Riggs called the crash a "great tragedy."

"They were not that far from home. ... That only adds to the tragedy," Riggs told The AP at the crash scene.


[img]http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=alastairjamiesonEC4D57CC-6C4F-5982-390C-CF09EAE88169.jpg&width=600[/img]


Please be in prayer for our church family as we look to the Lord for grace during the teen bus accident today," the church said in a statement posted on Facebook. "Details will be released at a later time, but prayers are our greatest need right now."

Many of the patients had head, arm and leg injuries, fire officials said.

Jeff Leffew, 44, of Fishers, Ind., who had sent four daughters to the camp, said the children on the bus "saw some difficult things" that they'd never had to experience before.

"Their biggest pain is what they saw," he told The AP.






http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/28/19731572-3-die-teen-critical-after-church-camp-bus-overturns-in-indianapolis?lite