lake george new york

lake george new york

A New York City woman was killed and eight people were injured on Sunday when a bus taking them to visit prisons upstate crashed on a highway near the town of Lake George, the authorities said.

The bus, carrying nine passengers and the driver, crashed about 3:15 a.m. near Exit 21 of the Adirondack Northway Highway — a portion of Interstate 87 — the New York State Police and a fire chief said. The woman, Curtrice E. Gravitt, 33, was killed when the bus rolled onto its side, trapping her underneath, the State Police said in a statement. Ms. Gravitt, who last lived in Manhattan, according to public records, suffered severe head, neck and chest injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene, the State Police said.

Seven passengers were taken to Glens Falls Hospital, the State Police said.

Ray Agnew, a hospital spokesman, said two of the injured passengers had surgery and their conditions were not immediately available, while a third was in serious condition in the intensive-care unit. By Sunday afternoon, four of the passengers had been treated and released, the police said. The bus driver was also treated for minor injuries, the police said.

The cause of the crash was being investigated, the police said. There had been no charges by Sunday evening.

The State Police said the bus was operated by Angelic Tours and Shuttles Inc., a private carrier based in Fayetteville, N.C., and had been taking passengers to visit New York State prisons in Ray Brook and Malone. Messages left at the bus company’s offices in Fayetteville and New York City were not returned.

The Northway is a portion of I-87, which runs more than 330 miles from the Bronx to the Canadian border. In August 2006, the driver of a Greyhound bus and four of its passengers traveling from New York to Montreal died when the bus flipped over on I-87, south of Plattsburgh, after the left front tire either blew out or deflated abruptly, causing the driver to lose control, the police said.

On Sunday, Joseph J. DuPrey, chief of the Queensbury Central Fire Department, said the department went to the scene, about a quarter-mile south of Exit 21, with equipment to extricate the victims.

“When we arrived on the scene, the bus was laying on its side on the median side,” he said in a telephone interview. A long skid mark on the highway indicated that the bus, which had been traveling north, slid for some distance before coming to a stop, Chief DuPrey said.

The woman who was killed had been seated near the back of the bus, but it was not clear how she became trapped under the bus. “How she actually got there I could not begin to even fathom,” Chief DuPrey said. “Whether it was through a window that got broken out during the bus rolling on its side, I can’t begin to take a guess.”

Another passenger, whose lower legs were trapped under the bus, had to be extricated with an air bag, he said.