Monday, June 02, 2008 19 hurt as bus skids, rams store
NINETEEN persons were injured after a speeding bus skidded off its course and plowed through a sari-sari store yesterday morning.
The Ceres bus (GWK 751) was headed for Cebu City from Bato, Oslob when it encountered a group of people pushing a multicab to jump-start it in Barangay Tinaan, City of Naga.
Driver Gideon Goc-ong, 37, told police that to avoid hitting them, he swerved hard.
Because the roads were slippery due to a heavy downpour the night before, the bus skidded and Goc-ong lost control of the bus, said PO2 Jesus Cañete.
The bus landed on its side and crashed into Josephine Alcaide’s sari-sari store, damaging a whole wall.
The bus also damaged the deep well pump of a certain Gregorio Canonigo.
The front part of the bus was also wrecked.
Though the police said that 19 were injured, the Cebu South General Hospital listed just four passengers who were admitted there.
The hospital identified them as Salome Ortega, Ma. Lyn Fuentes, Estella Amaga and bus inspector Freddie Laguna.
The rest of the passengers were sent home because they just suffered minor cuts and bruises.
Laguna was later transferred to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.
Goc-ong, who is now detained at the City of Naga Police Station, is facing a case for reckless imprudence resulting in physical injuries.
In northern Cebu, another Ceres bus hit a pedestrian in Sitio San Antonio, Barangay Jubay, Liloan last Saturday.
Florante Aniel Capanig, 27, was walking at the side of the road when the bus driven by Alberto Becelas Pios, 47, hit him.
Town policemen had to bring Capanig in their patrol jeep to the Eversley Childs Hospital in Mandaue City.
Pios is now detained at the Liloan Police Station. (MEA)
