The accident occurred when the bus hit a private van that had stopped on the left-side shoulder of the highway to assist another vehicle in an unrelated accident, the police said in a statement after an initial investigation. The unrelated, light, accident occurred on the other side of the road, with traffic flowing in the opposite direction of the bus. After the bus hit the car, the police said, it swerved across the highway, flipped on its side, skidded along the guard rail and came to a stop with the rail embedded in its side.Police said that the accident was avoidable, had the driver of the van stopped on the right-side shoulder.Kavim bus No. 304, which was traveling eastbound on Route 443 from the city of Modi’in Illit, flipped on its side and was punctured by the highway’s guard rail, with its windshield blown out in the accident. Helicopters, fire and rescue services, and army personnel were all dispatched to the scene, needing a crane to lift the bus back on its wheels to tow it away.Passengers and paramedics described the traumatic scene.“It all happened so fast,” one passenger, Noah Alfinbin recalled to Walla! News. “In ten seconds we were overturned and suddenly we were all on the floor. I tried to help as much as I could after I exited [the vehicle]. I saw children and babies [everywhere].Shlomo Gottlieb, a ZAKA volunteer from the Modi’in unit, said that the scene reminded him of a war zone.“I arrived at the scene within just a few minutes,” he said. “It was like a battlefield. There were injured passengers throughout the entire bus.”סרטון ממקום התהפכות האוטובוס בכביש מספר 443, הכביש חסום לתנועה ובמקום מספר רב של פצועים. תודה למוקד צבאי בטחוני 443. pic.twitter.com/oKFKeJg5Z4
— בני כבודי (@benikvodi) February 10, 2019