PENDLETON, Ore. — Some of the survivors of a fatal bus crash on a rural Oregon highway retrieved their passports and other belongings Tuesday so they can finish their journey to Canada.
At least 14 survivors remained hospitalized in three states after the weekend crash that killed nine and injured 38 others. State police escorted others one by one to collect their property, which was strewn across a hillside as the tour bus careened 200 feet from a partly icy roadway Sunday.
The bus was returning to Vancouver, British Columbia, on the final leg of a nine-day tour of the western United States. The trip was organized by a British Columbia travel agency to carry tourists traveling in small groups. Most of the passengers were Korean.
The Red Cross said some of the survivors were too terrified to get on another bus, so a nearby Ford dealer offered to drive them in smaller passenger vehicles. Some were expected to begin the trip today.
State police and National Transportation Safety Board investigators were expected to finish an inspection of the bus Tuesday.
Oregon State Police identified one of the nine victims as a 57-year-old Washington man. Authorities said Dale William Osborn of Spanaway was killed in the Sunday crash and his wife, Sue Osborn, remained hospitalized in Pendleton, about 200 miles east of Portland.
His daughter, Jennifer Sherman of Colorado Springs, said she was told her father was hit in the head by a rock while her mother was thrown into a river bed. She last spoke to her father two weeks ago.
"He was very happy," Sherman said. "He's a very good man."
Authorities have not yet released the names of the other eight people who died, but police said the four men and four women were of Asian descent.