12-Day-Old 'Miracle' Baby Survived Bus Crash

Truck driver hit shoulder, lost control while passing vehicles
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 22, 2014 8:32 AM CDT
12-Day-Old 'Miracle' Baby Survived Bus Crash
Emergency personnel respond to the scene of a fatal accident in Blythe, Calif. on Wednesday, May 21, 2014.   (AP Photo/Brian Skoloff)

More information is being released on yesterday's bus crash that killed four in California. The big rig that jackknifed, spilling metal pipes as long as 50 feet across the highway, was trying to pass slower vehicles when it drifted onto the dirt shoulder and lost control, police tell the AP. With no street lights and little moonlight, the pipes would have been tough to see until they were in range of a vehicle's headlights, police say. And within about a minute of them spilling onto the highway, at about 2:15am, the bus hit them. Passengers were thrown around inside as the bus rolled down an embankment, but miraculously, the youngest passenger—a 12-day-old baby girl—was unharmed, NBC News reports.

Mother Ana Perez was breastfeeding her newborn daughter, Daniela, at the time of the crash and, "I didn't let her go," says Perez. Though mom ended up bruised after slamming into a window, Daniela was just fine. "It was a miracle." Making that even more the case: Perez says two of the fatalities were sitting next to her. "When I got up, I was in between two dead bodies," Perez adds. "It was horrible." As for the tour bus driver, he "was trying to avoid (the pipes), but it was too late." (More bus crash stories.)

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