JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Only Action News Jax is hearing from a man who was on a bus that crashed heading to an excursion in the Bahamas.
As Action News Jax has been reporting, the bus crashed Monday in Rock Sound, seriously injuring four people and hospitalizing more than two dozen others.
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Nick Dale is a nursing student who started his schooling at Jacksonville University. He said he and his buddy, Chase Hollingsworth, jumped into action to help people.
“It was quite a chaotic and kind of a scary event,” Dale said.
Thursday, the Carnival Ecstasy ship returned to Jacksonville from its five-day cruise.
“It was literally just kind of a spontaneous summer trip,” Dale said.
Monday, they took a ferry from the ship to Eleuthera for a daylong cave excursion, which they took the bus involved to reach.
“I was looking out the window one second, next thing I know, a tree branch is hitting the bus, and we're spinning sideways,” Dale said. “There were a lot of people who were injured, and the first thing you think about is, ‘Am I OK? Are the people I'm with OK?’ And then I immediately started to react and look for other people, (to) see if they were all OK.”
Nursing students, both men, starting triaging people and getting them away from the bus.
“There were lots of lacerations, so lots of blood. There's a couple people that were pinned inside the bus,” Dale said.
Dale said an 18-year-old college student was stuck under the bus.
“Since he was trapped, he was pinned, they really had to worry about if they moved the bus or if they moved him, if he would have any internal injuries that would suddenly cause him to become very critical,” Dale said. “I did my best to try to stay with him, mainly because when you're trapped in a situation like that, I just kept thinking what I would have wanted someone to do for me.”
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Dale did get an update that the young man is out of surgery, awake and alert.
The two worked alone for about 20 minutes before being joined by nurses headed to work and paramedics.
Injuries for four people were so severe, that they were flown elsewhere for care.
A total of 28 others were treated at area hospitals.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash, which remains under investigation.
Dale said he was just doing what anyone would do.
“When you're in a situation like that, it shows the best of humanity,” Dale said. “I think that the people that responded, responded as best as they could.”
Carnival said it has suspended all operations by the tour operator and they're helping impacted guests and their families.