FORT MEADE, Fla. — One person is dead and multiple others are injured following a crash between a semi-tanker truck and a bus, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.
The crash happened just after 6 a.m. Monday on U.S. Highway 98 East between Adams Road and Avon Park Cutoff Road in Fort Meade. A semi-tanker truck and a white grove worker transport bus were involved in the crash.
The semi-tanker truck was transporting unleaded fuel and the migrant worker bus containing more than three dozen people, owned by Overlook Harvesting in Winter Haven, was transporting workers to Plant City to pick strawberries.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says one person was killed and ten more were injured.
Investigators say it’s still unclear why, but it looks like the bus carrying the workers strayed across the center line hitting the tanker head-on.
“They [the migrants] are scared and they don’t even know what to expect. They don’t know what’s going to happen,” Isabel Leo’N, program director of the Farm Worker Career Development Program, said. “And I’m sure that they’re just thinking about their families as well. They just wanna make sure that their families know that they’re OK.”
Advocates for the laborers who’ve been hospitalized say they’re working to communicate with family members. Most of them are in Mexico.
Judd says they are also working with DCF so they can receive the services they need.
Deputies said preliminary information indicates the bus was driving west and "for unknown reasons" crossed over into the eastbound lanes and collided with the tanker head-on.
Deputies said one person died in the crash and 10 more people are injured.
The sheriff's office said there were 38 people on the bus at the time of the crash. The person who died was on the bus. A total of nine people from the bus were taken to the hospital with serious injuries and taken to the following hospitals — Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center, Sebring Hospital, Lake Wales Hospital and Tampa General Hospital.
The semi-tanker driver was also reportedly injured, although their injuries are considered "less serious" and was taken to Bartow Regional Medical Center.
Some fuel leaked from the tanker as a result of the crash. The rest of the fuel is being transferred to another tanker.
U.S. Highway 98 East was shut down for several hours but has since reopened.