A Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority bus crashed into a restaurant in Washington’s Shaw neighborhood on Saturday morning, leaving three people injured, according to the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department.
D.C. Fire and EMS was dispatched at 7:13 a.m. to a crash at the corner of Seventh Street NW and Q Street NW, according to Vito Maggiolo, a public information officer for D.C. Fire and EMS.
“When we arrived, we found that there had been a crash involving a Metrobus and another vehicle, an SUV,” Maggiolo said. “The Metrobus subsequently ran into the front of a restaurant, right on the corner here, partially inside the restaurant.”
Photos posted on D.C. Fire and EMS’s social media show the bus halfway inside the Balkan restaurant Ambar. The restaurant was unoccupied at the time of the crash, according to Maggiolo.
D.C. Fire and EMS transported three people to the hospital, Maggiolo said, “all with minor injuries.” The three, all adult females, were the bus driver, a bus passenger and the driver of the SUV, according to Maggiolo.
The next step is removing the bus from the restaurant. D.C. Fire and EMS is breaking up concrete to make it easier to tow the bus out of the building, Maggiolo said, adding that he was unsure on when that work would be completed.
When the bus is removed, Maggiolo said, officials will be able to determine the extent of the building damage. “Our initial evaluation found no significant structural issues, other than our concern for this facade,” he said.
Maggiolo said it was up to the police to determine the cause of the crash. Lee Lepe, a spokesperson for D.C. police, said Third District officers responded to the intersection for a report of a two-vehicle collision involving a Metrobus. The circumstances of the vehicle crash will be part of the investigation, he said.
This isn’t the first time a bus has crashed at this site. “This is the second time in my lifetime,” Maggiolo said. “Back in the mid ’80s, I was at the scene of a bus into the same building.”
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