20 Hurt After Tour Bus Crashes in San Francisco`s Union Square

Nov. 14--A tour bus traveling at high speed plowed into a bicyclist before crashing into cars and construction scaffolding in San Francisco's Union Square on Friday afternoon, leaving at least 20 people hurt, seven of them critically, officials said.

The crash happened just before 3 p.m. on the 300 block of Post Street as the popular tourist shopping area was teeming with people and traffic, police said.

"It was pretty chaotic -- I haven't seen anything like this," said Andre Blanson, a security guard at St. Morritz, who walked to the scene as the first paramedics arrived and saw people struggling to escape from the wreckage. "There were people underneath the fallen scaffold. There were also people still inside the bus and coming outside of the bus."

The blue double-decker City Sightseeing San Francisco bus came roaring down Post, where police said it struck a bicyclist and continued a path of destruction as it roared east toward Stockton Street.

At least 30 people were aboard the bus when it slammed into several vehicles before crashing into 12-foot-high scaffolding at a construction site, police said. About 20 people were injured, said a San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman.

Firefighters had to pull seven people from the mess of twisted metal, including two who were taken from under the bus. They also had to extricate the driver and a passenger who had been sitting on the top deck of the bus, officials said.

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said about 75 firefighters and other emergency workers were involved in the rescue. "It was dicey, but everyone worked really well together."

Six people, including the bicyclist, were taken to San Francisco General Hospital with life-threatening injuries, said a hospital spokesman. Officer Albie Esparaza, spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, said three of the critically injured victims were in cars the bus hit as it careened down the street, he said.

Four people were treated at the scene, and 16 were taken to hospitals, officials said. Among those were two victims -- one critical, and one stable -- who were sent to St. Francis Hospital, and two more with minor injuries who were taken to California Pacific Medical Center, officials said.

Police Chief Greg Suhr said terrorism did not appear to be involved in the incident.

The license for the company that operates the bus, City Sightseeing, was revoked for unknown reasons in 2013 but officials for the California Public Utilities Commission said the company had a current permit to operate the bus. The bus is inspected every two years by the California Highway Patrol.

Chronicle staff writers Vivian Ho, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Victoria Colliver, Steve Rubenstein and Nanette Asimov contributed to this report.

Hamed Aleaziz, Jenna Lyons and Kevin Fagan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com and kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

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