by ANDY SEVILLA
A woman who police say jumped off the Kyle Parkway overpass and landed inside a motor coach bus traveling on Interstate 35, late last month, is recovering at an Austin hospital and the victim said she may be getting out soon.
The woman, who authorities say jumped onto oncoming traffic, said Tuesday evening she is recovering and expects to be released from the hospital in the near future. She declined to comment further.
Kyle police officers were dispatched to Kyle Parkway on a suicide attempt call just after 4 a.m. on April 27. According to several police incident reports, the victim jumped off the overpass and crashed through the windshield of a motor coach bus traveling north on Interstate 35 (IH-35), knocking down several rows of seats before landing on the floor board in between rows four and five of the commercial vehicle.
Officers who were approximately ten yards away from the woman before she allegedly jumped, were quickly discussing “the best procedure to attempt to keep her from falling or jumping off the bridge,” but were too late in their efforts as she “swung her left arm around and propelled herself off the bridge,” according to Officer Michael Torres’ incident report.
“I observed [the victim] grab the rail and push herself off of the side and fall. I heard a loud banging sound from underneath (the overpass) after she fell towards the middle lane of IH-35 northbound,” said Kyle Police Sergeant Ander Marmolejo in an incident report. “… It appeared as if [the victim] had struck the front windshield as the bus was passing underneath the bridge and had collided with seatbacks before coming to rest in the footwell.”
Emergency medical responders transported the woman to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin where she remains and is expected to recover. Police say the OK Tours bus she crashed into was not carrying passengers, and aside from the woman, nobody else was injured in the incident.
The driver of the struck vehicle, Ralph Felix Casiano, was not hurt in the wreck, as the victim crashed into the passenger side windshield, according to Mark Griffin, an OK Tours supervisor.
“If (she) would have gone through (Casiano’s) windshield, who knows what could have happened,” Griffin said.
OK Tours, which operates out of San Antonio, had to cancel trips and is “losing revenue” as the motor coach bus remains out of commission, Griffin said. A cost estimate of the damage to the bus or the loss of revenue figure is not yet available, he said.
The northbound lanes of IH-35 were closed for about three hours while authorities concluded their investigation. Traffic was diverted out of the northbound lanes of the interstate at Exit 215, according to incident reports.
