SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – Greyhound passengers were overcome with fumes and they claim they didn’t get any help from the driver.
The bus was headed to Salt Lake City but passengers claim the problem started about a half hour out of St. George.
“All of a sudden I could smell gas,” says Dan Coughlan. “And it got worse and worse and after three or four minutes went by and I thought I should tell the bus driver.”
Couglan says it was about midnight and most passengers were asleep. But others started feeling the effects.
“It was very think and it was definitely causing irritation to a lot of my skin,” says Matthew Jacobs.
And David Gonzales woke up feeling the effects too.
“I was in the fourth seat back and pretty soon my eyes started watering and got nauseated a bit,” he says.
Soon other passengers towards the front of the bus were waking up because of the smell.
Couglan says one woman started throwing up and that’s when he confronted the bus driver.
“She told me she thought it was just some vehicle that passed them and backfired,” he says. “She told me she would stop in St. George.
The bus eventually made it to St. George and that's when it pulled over.
Passengers saw gas pouring out from the bus.
“I saw a whole trail of gas, a puddle of gas beneath the engine,” Couglan says. “It was leaking bad.”
After seeing that passengers knew their lives had been put in a dangerous situation.
“We could have come across the wrong person and he flips the cigarette out and boom,” Jacobs says. “I'm just glad that didn't happen."
According to a spokesperson from Greyhound, a bus driver has discretion to take the bus to a safe place. In this case, the driver chose to go to St. George instead of becoming stranded on Interstate-15. But the spokesman says they will review the case to see if the driver handled it properly.
Meanwhile, passengers waited in St. George for four hours before another Greyhound bus arrived.
They eventually made it to Salt Lake City by late morning.
“It was hair raising,” says Coughlan.
