A horrific collision between a Greyhound bus and a semi-truck on an interstate in New Mexico killed at least seven passengers and sent dozens of others to area hospitals, authorities reported Thursday.  Preliminary information indicated the semi was headed east when it blew a tire, sending the rig across the median and into oncoming traffic where it smashed into the bus, New Mexico State Police said.   Television footage of the crash site on Interstate 40 near the Arizona border showed the front of the bus had crumpled after impact. The truck was on its side with debris scattered over the highway and a nearby median.  The driver of the semi-truck sustained non-life-threatening injuries, state police said.  Passing motorists described a chaotic scene with passengers on the ground and people screaming.

Eric Huff was heading to the Grand Canyon with his girlfriend when they came across the crash.  Huff said the semi’s trailer was upside down and “shredded to pieces,” and the front of the Greyhound bus was smashed, with many of the seats pressed together. Part of the side of the bus was torn off, he said.  “It was an awe-inspiring terrible scene,” he said  Truck driver Santos Soto III shot video showing the front of the Greyhound sheared off and the semi split open, with its contents strewn across the highway.  First responders work the scene of a collision between a Greyhound passenger bus and a semi-truck on Interstate 40 near the town of Thoreau, N.M., near the Arizona border on Aug. 30, 2018. Multiple people were killed and others were seriously injured. Officers and rescue workers were on scene but did not provide details about how many people were killed or injured, or what caused the crash.   He saw people sobbing on the side of the road as bystanders tried to comfort them.  “I was really traumatized myself, because I’ve been driving about two years and I had never seen anything like that before,” Soto said.   “I’m a pretty strong person and I broke down and cried for at least 30 minutes,” he added.

Greyhound said the bus, which originated in St. Louis on Wednesday, had stopped in Albuquerque and was en route to Phoenix with 47 passengers.  “We are fully cooperating with local authorities and will also complete an investigation of our own,” Greyhound spokeswoman Crystal Booker said in a statement.  The crash occurred near the town of Thoreau. It forced the closure of the westbound lanes of the interstate and traffic was backing up as travelers were diverted.  “It was chaos,” said Officer Ray Wilson, a New Mexico State Police spokesman, in a media briefing. “The officers did a great job of sifting through the wreckage and the rubble to get survivors out of the bus…”

More than 33 patients have been transported to local area hospitals with injuries, some are said to be in critical condition, ABC News reported, quoting authorities.  Christopher Jones said he got to the accident site just after the crash.  “I saw the tractor trailer flipped upside down the driver of the tractor trailer was on the shoulder just sitting there. So I grabbed my medical kit and grabbed a bunch of my gloves and got out there and just started helping people and it was a pretty rough site,” Jones told ABC News.  Jones, who said he used to be a volunteer firefighter and EMT, described the scene as “one of the hardest” he’s ever had to see.

An Uber driver in Florida shot and killed a man who chased him and threatened him with a pistol in what authorities are calling a “classic stand your ground case.”  Early Tuesday morning, the Uber driver picked up a woman from a bar in Dundee, Fla., according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.   Authorities say Jason Boek, 34, saw the Uber pickup and mistook the woman in the Uber as his on-again, off-again girlfriend, and texted her claiming he was going to beat up the Uber driver, identified as 38-year-old Robert Westlake.  A dashcam video from Westlake’s vehicle shows a Ford pickup truck veer in front of the car, attempting to slow it down. Both cars stop, and the driver of the truck, later identified as Boek, jumps out threatening the Uber driver. “You know i got a pistol, you want me to shoot you,” said Boek.  As Boek approached Westlake, holding an object in his hand, Westlake shot Boek once in the chest. The Sheriff’s Office later confirmed Boek had a cell phone in his hand.

Westlake then called 911 and attempted CPR on Boek. Authorities said Westlake is a concealed weapon permit holder and a licensed armed security guard who also just finished the police academy.

“This is a justifiable homicide all day long,” said Sheriff Grady Judd of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, during a press conference. “You have the right to protect yourself. This is a classic stand your ground case. This was the intent of the law.”  Florida’s “stand your ground” law says people have no “duty to retreat” if they believe they must use deadly force to prevent death or serious injury.