WASHINGTON — A shuttle bus transporting a group back from a birthday party collided with a car and overturned before dawn Sunday along a highway south of the nation’s capital, leaving one person dead and sending 16 others to the hospital, Virginia State Police said.
The bus was headed south on Interstate 95 when witnesses reported seeing a speeding white sedan swerve into the bus’s lane. Virginia State Police initially said the bus swerved to avoid the car and then overturned, but they later said the two vehicles collided, causing the bus driver to lose control, drive off the road and overturn.
The driver of the white sedan did not stop but was arrested later Sunday and charged with one felony count of hit-and-run, the Virginia State Police said. State Police identified him as 31-year-old Raphael Manuel Barrientos of Dumfries, Va. A woman who answered at a telephone listing for his home declined to comment.
The crash occurred on the interstate in northern Virginia’s Fairfax County and police were called at 3:28 a.m. Sunday, State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said.