(Updated at 7:45 p.m.) Police and firefighters are on scene of a crash involving an Arlington Transit bus and an SUV in the Nauck neighborhood.
The crash happened around 6:15 p.m. Monday at the intersection of S. Nelson Street and 22nd Street S. Neighbors have been told that the bus somehow lost power heading up the steep hill on 22nd Street and began rolling backward, striking the parked SUV, knocking down utility lines and a light pole, and spinning into the yard of a home on the corner.
Several passengers were on board the bus at the time of the crash. One person, believed to be a passenger on the bus, suffered non-life-threatening facial injuries.
Police and ART officials were on scene taking photos and investigating the crash. A large wrecker later arrived to remove the bus from the yard.
The residents of the house the vehicles nearly slid into were at home at the time of the crash. Jill Brown said she and her husband were 10 feet from the wall closest to the collision.
“I heard the impact from the bus hitting my neighbor’s car, which was parked on the street when the bus slid into it,” Brown said. “I stood up, ran over and said to my husband, ‘Oh my God there’s a bus in the yard, call 911.’ And I ran out and… ran around the bus and made sure people were getting off the bus.”
“I saw one person go away in an ambulance, everyone else just seemed pretty shook up,” she said.
A similar crash involving an ART bus that rolled down a hill happened in Courthouse in 2013. Several buses were temporarily taken out of service pending a subsequent investigation.
Nelson Street was closed to traffic at S. Walter Reed Drive as a result of the crash.