PENDLETON, Wash.-- As the charter bus went down the steep embankment many passengers were thrown out.
A survivor of the accident is still in shock from what happened and described a scene of injured passengers scattered around the crash site.
A St. Anthony Hospital official explained a sort of organized chaos that followed the crash as responders rushed people to be treated for their injuries.
Survivor Jaemin Seo remembers the gruesome scene.
"I was totally scared. I thought many people on the bus almost were dead because the bus was totally broken down," Seo said.
Seo is grateful to be a survivor of the disastrous bus crash on Interstate 84 near Pendleton on Sunday morning.
He is an exchange student in Vancouver B.C. from South Korea. He was thrown from the bus as it fell 200 feet down an embankment. Seo says he gained consciousness when he heard survivor's screams for help.
"People screamed and yelled. Some mothers screamed to find their son or daughter," Seo said.
He suffered a broken ankle and cuts on his arm.
"I wanted to climb up to the road but I couldn't because I couldn't walk," Seo said.
Larry Blanc, St. Anthony Hospital spokesman, said rescuers transported 26 people in ambulances to St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton as responders pulled them on ropes and sleds from the scene.
"Wasn't like they were all coming at one time. It was a little bit staggered. Might be four then a little bit of a wait. Ten, fifteen minutes and then four more," Blanc said.
Seven patients were released from the hospital Sunday night and only one of the remaining is in serious condition.
"The storm is over as far as the patients are concerned as far as the care that's being offered here in the hospital. I feel very comfortable with the 14 patients that are here," Blanc said.
Most of the passengers on the bus, traveling from Las Vegas to Vancouver, were Korean, coming from Canada, Seattle and South Korea.
"Bit of a language barrier there. We've had an interpreter who lives in Pendleton who's volunteered his time to come down and talk. But really a lot of them, they've been through a traumatic experience and they're amazingly well composed afterwards and a little scared, wanting to reconnect with family," said Casey White-Zollman, Red Cross Volunteer.
Crews pulled the wreckage from the snowy embankment Monday. But the real damage remains in traumatic memories, injuries and loss of life.
