Several injured in accident involving DDOT bus, SUV - Fox 2 News Headlines

There was an accident Monday afternoon between a city bus and a working guy T-boned at Gratiot and Van Dyke.

Landscaper Craig Patterson caught the northbound city bus around 1:00 p.m.  He caught it square in the driver's side door after witnesses say the bus driver ran a red light.

"Got a good view of the light.  The light was green.  This guy was coming through.  The bus just eased through like he wasn't even paying attention and he got in his pathway and the guy tried to avoid it and the bus hit him on the side.  It was clearly the bus driver's fault," said one witness.

"He did not hit [the] brake or [anything].  He was just going through the light," said passenger Vince Cannon.

Another passenger, Charlene, also said the bus driver ran the light.

Patterson was cutting grass before he got cut down, but he's alive and listed in serious condition.  Another 15 passengers were transported to area hospitals with minor injuries.

The veteran bus driver, Randolph Skillman, was uninjured, but will be drug tested as a matter of procedure.  He had nothing to say, but the bus driver's union representative was there and he had plenty to say.

"That would've been a solid red light he would have had to come out here and enter this intersection on.  That couldn't happen.  That's a professional operator.  It wouldn't have happened," said Brian Miller, vice president of Local 27.

But if people say that's exactly what happened?

"If that's what people say, that's what they say.  People see what they see, people think what they think, but the truth is the truth. This will all come out in the facts."

Complicating things for investigators, the driver claims about two dozen people were on the bus, but three dozen showed up claiming they were injured.  Further complicating things, the plate wasn't registered to the landscaper's vehicle.

Officially, they still don't know who is at fault.  The investigation continues.