Deadly Mississippi Bus Crash Leaves 7 Dead, Dozens Injured

Mississippi Bus Crash Tragedy

On August 31, 2024, a trag­ic bus crash in Mis­sis­sip­pi claimed the lives of 7 peo­ple and left dozens more injured. 

The inci­dent occurred around 12:40 am on Inter­state 20 near Bov­ina in War­ren Coun­ty when a 2018 Vol­vo com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger bus trav­el­ing west­bound over­turned on its side.

Horrific Details of the Crash

Accord­ing to the Mis­sis­sip­pi High­way Patrol (MHP), six pas­sen­gers were pro­nounced dead at the scene, and one indi­vid­ual died lat­er at a local hospital.

The vic­tims includ­ed a pair of sib­lings, aged 6 and 16, as well as three females and four males. At least 37 oth­er pas­sen­gers with unknown injuries were trans­port­ed to var­i­ous area hospitals.

War­ren Coun­ty Sher­iff Mar­tin Pace described the scene as “Mul­ti­ple injuries and mul­ti­ple fatal­i­ties… it just com­pounds the tragedy.” 

Eye­wit­ness Mag­an Gon­za­lez recount­ed the har­row­ing events, stat­ing that peo­ple were trapped in the bus and try­ing to get out, with one young cou­ple man­ag­ing to escape and walk around.

Investigation into the Crash

The MHP and the Com­mer­cial Trans­porta­tion Enforce­ment Divi­sion have launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into the cause of the crash. Ini­tial reports indi­cate that a blown tire may have con­tributed to the vehi­cle overturning.

The bus dri­ver, who suf­fered a shoul­der injury but refused treat­ment until all pas­sen­gers were evac­u­at­ed, was report­ed­ly dis­traught and blamed him­self for the accident.

The Vicks­burg Fire Depart­ment and War­ren Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office worked for two hours to res­cue the trapped pas­sen­gers. Inter­state 20 remained closed as author­i­ties con­tin­ued their inves­ti­ga­tion and worked to iden­ti­fy the deceased.