Eight people died and at least 40 others were injured Tuesday morning after a bus carrying farm workers crashed in Marion County, Florida.
Officials with the Florida Highway Patrol said the crash happened around 6:35 a.m. ET on State Road 40, about 16 miles west of the central Florida city of Ocala.
The bus was transporting 53 farm workers when it collided in a “side-swiped manner” with a Ford pickup truck, causing the bus to run off the road through a fence before flipping over, troopers reported.
The pickup truck driver was arrested Tuesday afternoon in connection to the crash, according to Scripps News Tampa Bay. Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, was charged with eight counts of driving under the influence manslaughter.
The offense carries a minimum sentence of four years in prison if convicted, according to Florida state law.
Marion County Fire Rescue said the injured victims were transported to local area hospitals, with eight of them in critical condition.
According to the local newspaper Ocala StarBanner, the bus was headed to Cannon Farms in Dunnellon, Florida. The family-owned farm said on Facebook it would be closed Tuesday “out of respect to the losses and injuries endured early this morning in the accident that took place to the Olvera Trucking Harvesting Corp.”
The investigation into the crash is ongoing.
