5th person dies from California bus crash; bus originated in El Paso
An 86-year-old man has become the fifth person to die from a bus crash last month in the Southern California desert.
The Riverside County coroner’s office says Thomas Madrid died Tuesday at a Palm Springs hospital.
A relative says Thomas was a New Mexico native who lived most of his life in San Diego and spent 25 years in the Marines.
The bus was heading from Texas to Los Angeles when it crashed May 21 near Blythe. Authorities say it struck metal pipes that fell from a jackknifed truck and scattered across Interstate 10.
The bus slid down an embankment and overturned.
It was the worst bus crash in the state since April, when a big-rig hit a bus carrying high school students in northern California, killing 10.
