Bus driver in deadly crash arrested
Police arrest Quintin Joey Watts of Stockton on suspicion of drunk driving based on a description of his driving before the accident that left 8 dead and 35 injured.
SACRAMENTO -- Authorities arrested a bus driver on suspicion of drunk driving early today in the aftermath of a horrific crash on a rural Colusa County roadway that left eight casino-bound passengers dead and 35 others injured.
Quintin Joey Watts, 52, of Stockton was arrested at a nearby hospital where he had been taken with critical injuries, said Officer Bob Kays, a California Highway Patrol spokesman.
"I don't think it can get much worse than this," Kays said, describing the carnage that left the charter bus a crumpled mass of metal sitting in a farmer's rice field.
Kays said an initial review by CHP investigators indicated that Watts did not have the proper license or certification to drive a commercial bus, and that the vehicle itself did not appear to be properly registered.
Watts was driving northbound on a two-lane country road, ferrying a full load of passengers from Sacramento to nearby Colusa Casino when the accident took place early Sunday evening.
An off-duty sheriff's deputy heading in the opposite direction saw the crash, Kays said.
Sgt. Merced Corona of the Colusa County Sheriff Department told investigators the bus swerved off the shoulder for no apparent reason, over-corrected, then plowed off the narrow strip of asphalt and into a farm drainage ditch, Kays said.
The bus, loaded mostly with Laotian immigrants heading for an evening of gambling at the casino, flipped once and came to rest upright facing the opposite direction, its windows smashed out, roof and sides battered and caked with mud, he said.
"He saw people flung from the vehicle, going all over the place," said Kays, who talked to the sergeant after the crash.
Kays said firefighters and law officers responded from around the Sacramento Valley. Emergency crews had to build a makeshift catwalk to reach the bus as it sat upright in the soggy rice field, still wet from weekend rains.
Six helicopters and dozens of ambulances ferried the dead and wounded to eight different hospitals around the valley, from Chico in the north to the trauma unit at Sacramento's UC Davis Medical Center.
Kays said at least 13 victims -- including two of those who died -- remain unidentified. Several remain in critical condition, he said, but some have already been treated and released. Initial reports of the dead and injured in the hours after the crash were incorrect because some victims were counted twice, he said.
