Bus Crash Kills Two On Outing Wreck Injures 18 Others On Nursing Home Day Trip

A bus carrying residents of a Butte nursing home on a day outing overturned just outside Virginia City Tuesday afternoon, killing two people and injuring 18 others.

The bus carried 15 residents of Crest Nursing Home, the sister of one resident, four staff members and a driver, Madison County Sheriff Lee Edmisten said.

Both the dead were nursing home residents, Edmisten said.

Edmisten withheld the identities of the dead and injured.

The injured were taken first to hospitals at Sheridan, 9 miles west, and Ennis, 14 miles east.

Tuesday night, the sheriff said five people remained in Madison Valley Hospital at Ennis; five had been sent to St. James Hospital in Butte, one in critical condition; and eight were released, some after treatment.

The driver was not injured and was taken to Butte by the Highway Patrol, the sheriff said.

“The bus was westbound on (state highway) 287 from Virginia City to Alder,” the sheriff said.

“It came around a corner, and the driver dropped the wheels off the right side (of the pavement), off the shoulder, and overcorrected. The bus landed on its side.”

He said one person died at the scene and the other died at Ruby Valley Hospital in Sheridan.

The bus left Butte Tuesday morning on a day outing for the nursing home residents, administrator Charles Blando said.

Virginia City is a tourist attraction featuring buildings of a mining-era town.

Five nursing home residents and two staff members received mostly “bumps and bruises” and were able to return to the nursing home Tuesday night, the administrator said.

One of the staff members was his wife, Blando said.

“We just can’t say enough about the help they got from the people down around Ennis and Sheridan,” Blando said.

“My wife said everyone was helping - young men were stopping - it was wonderful.”