Couple hit by truck after flight diverted

An elderly Chinese couple are in critical condition after they were struck by a pickup truck in Maryland after their flight was diverted to Baltimore on March 2, due to a snowstorm on the East Coast.

The couple, visiting the US as tourists, took American Airlines Flight 4664 from Minneapolis, bound for New York.

They and other passengers were instructed by the airline to take a charter bus to New York about 200 miles away after the fight was diverted to Baltimore.

The couple were struck by an oncoming vehicle and suffered severe injuries when they got off the bus to buy food, according to Stefani Kuo, 22, a Yale University student who also took the same flight.

“They said they had been on a redirected flight from Nashville and were on their way to visit their son in New York,” said Kuo, adding the couple speak limited English and asked for her help. She spoke to the couple in Mandarin.

Because of bad weather they were stuck on the bus for about nine hours, and the bus had traveled on 40 miles.

Kuo said the bus had no bathrooms and no food and made only one stop, the parking lot of a McDonald’s in Aberdeen, Maryland, during the first nine hours, so all of the passengers got off and looked for food.

“That’s when they got hit by the truck,” said Kuo, adding that the driver of the bus appeared ready to leave the rest stop without checking that all passengers were on board.

And it wasn’t until Kuo expressed concern about the couple that the driver learned they had been injured in the accident, she added.

The couple both were hospitalized with serious head trauma, police said, according to The Washington Post.

“I could not speak about the couple’s condition because last time I met them they didn’t want me to talk to the press about them because I think they want their own privacy,” Kuo told China Daily.

American Airlines spokeswoman Michelle Mohr told The Washington Post that two of its passengers were involved in an accident Friday while being transported by bus from Baltimore to New York, but declined to name the couple.

“What we did was we immediately deployed specially trained members of our Care Team to assist the couple and their son who came down to see them,” Mohr said.

“So we’re working closely with the family to make sure they have the support and care that they need during this difficult time. As soon as we learned of this, we jumped into action.”

Kuo has contradicted that account, saying American would not have known about the couple’s accident had she not demanded to speak with an airline employee at BaltimoreWashington International Airport around 1 am on Saturday.

Corporal Craig Gentile, the Aberdeen officer who responded to the scene, told the Post that he was only able to identify the victims as Chinese nationals because of their passports.

It took him nearly four hours to reach someone at a Chinese consulate and the embassy in Washington so he could contact the couple’s next of kin — and it might have taken longer had Kuo not helped, he said.

Kuo told China Daily that an American employee called her and offered a $500 gift voucher after the incident and raised it to $700 because she told the employee that she also bought a $209 flight ticket to New York.

She said she believed that all passengers on the bus were offered the same compensation.