'We were doomed'

A woman who was trapped inside a Greyhound bus that was involved in a terrifying multi-vehicle crash on the Coquihalla Highway Sunday, said the entire bus turned into panic mode.

Lacey Shepherd tells Castanet her bus was travelling from Calgary to Coquitlam when they hit Merritt at about 8 p.m., it started to rain turning the highway into a sheet of ice.

“We were coming around the corner and there were already 15 to 20 vehicles that crashed,” she said. “We were doomed right from the start.”

Everyone on the bus braced themselves as they smacked into the first set of vehicles.

Shepherd sat there for a moment and then realized tractor-trailers are going to be coming around the corner headed right for them.

Seconds later, two tractor-trailers zipped by them flipping in the ditch moments before another tractor-trailer crashed into them.

“It was certainly terrifying, it was only a couple seconds that I saw the trucks and then it hit us,” she said.

The horrific moment was captured on video by Shepherd.

“After I got thrown back, I thought holy crap that was dangerous, this is scary, we are actually in trouble,” she tells Castanet.

It was that moment when the entire bus turned into panic mode.

“People were screaming to get off, people in shock screaming in pain and there were people just sitting there,” she recalls.

Passengers were trapped inside the Greyhound bus for over two hours as crews worked to find a way to remove people safely.

“We were trapped, all the windows were covered in semi,” she said. “We were about to tip and they didn’t know how to get us out.”

Twenty-nine people were rushed to hospital after the collision involving six vehicles and over 130 people were rushed to warming centres in Hope.

“I am honestly surprised there hasn’t been a fatality yet, there was people screaming from inside their trucks because they couldn’t get out.”

The condition of the 29 people taken to hospital is unknown at this time.