It is late, almost the end of this tragic day. Two people are dead and 21 others injured, 3 critically, after a Strain Tours bus driver lost control on Interstate 90 near Austin, Minnesota, crossed over to the wrong land and rolled into the ditch. The bus is owned by Bold Lines, Inc., doing business as Strain Tours.
Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, we all learned more about the accident. Tomorrow the Minnesota State Patrol will probably post more names. We have a few from news reports. Names are important because they give a tragedy a face. Names aren’t just statistics.
One of the passengers on the bus was Bill Kesler, who was related to almost half of the other passengers. Here is what the Star Tribune wrote about him:
On the way home from an Iowa casino, Bill Kesler found out how lucky he really is.
The Rochester man walked away from a bus crash and rollover Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 90 near Austin. Two people aboard were killed, and the 21 others aboard were hurt, three of them critically.
Most of the passengers on board were older adults. Some were ejected as the bus rolled, a State Patrol spokesman said.
Kesler, 64, and his wife were part of a group of 10 coming back from the Diamond Jo Casino, off Interstate 35 near the Iowa-Minnesota border. With them: her four sisters and their husbands.
“We don’t even know what happened,” said Kesler. “It happened so fast. I was sitting toward the back, and the next thing I knew, the bus went over the median and flipped.”
Mr. Kesler walked away, but he has injuries, and they may be worse than he thinks. Some brain injuries take days or weeks to manifest.
We have had clients tell us they did not realize how injured they were and would have settled for inadequate amounts if they had not come to us.
We have recently recovered money for families in several wrongful death cases involving elderly people. Our experience has been that insurance companies place little value on the life of an older person. Our job as attorneys is to prove that they are wrong and that every life has substantial value.
For those who would like a free consultation with one of our Minnesota bus accident lawyers about a Strain Tours lawsuit, we welcome you to call our law firm at 1-888-377-8900 (toll free) or submit our online consultation form.
If you would like to learn more about our lawyers, visit our “About Us” page on our main website, www.pritzkerlaw.com. There is information about each attorney and links to even more information.
