A Sound Transit bus crashed into a retaining wall in downtown Seattle Saturday evening, hospitalizing 11 people, according to the Seattle Fire Department.
One of those people, a 54-year-old man, was in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center, firefighters reported in a blog post. The others, all adults, were in stable condition.
The collision occurred shortly before 7 p.m. outside an office building at 300 Fifth Ave., near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Terrace Street, the police spokesperson said from Seattle, Eric Munoz. All directions of traffic were closed during the response and Seattle City Light arrived to repair the power lines that powered the streetlights.
“The driver initially said his brakes were failing and he had swerved into the barrier,” Muñoz said.
The driver was evaluated by a police department drug recognition expert “out of an abundance of caution,” Muñoz said.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that a King County Metro bus crashed in downtown Seattle.