Wis. priest, others injured in Bosnia bus crash
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - A bus carrying a group of mainly Wisconsin residents to a Catholic shrine in southern Bosnia collided with another vehicle Monday, injuring 27 passengers and the Bosnian bus driver, hospital officials said.
Dr. Lidija Lincender of Sarajevo's Kosevo hospital said the injuries were being assessed, "and all I can say now is that three people sustained serious injuries, possibly life-threatening."
The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo said the American group were from Wisconsin.
Twenty of the injured were hospitalized in the Kosevo hospital, and another seven were taken to the General Hospital, the embassy said.
In Wisconsin, Kathleen Hohl of the Milwaukee Roman Catholic Archdiocese said the group of 34 people included one from South Dakota and the rest from Wisconsin 27 of whom are from throughout the Milwaukee archdiocese. They left Chicago Sunday on a 10-day pilgrimage, and the accident involved a collision with a jackknifed truck, she said.
The Rev. Rick Wendell, serving as spiritual director on the privately sponsored tour, suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, Hohl said. She said Wendell, who is in his late 40s and was ordained last year, is associate pastor at Holy Angels Parish in West Bend, Wis.
Bosnian police said the bus collided with another vehicle in Tarcin, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Sarajevo. No details about the accident could be released because an investigation was under way, police said.
The embassy said the bus passengers had been on their way to the southern Bosnian town of Medjugorje, where millions of faithful have visited a shrine since 1981, when six Bosnian Croats said they began seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary. The Medjugorje apparition has not been officially recognized by the Catholic Church.
Leslie Phillips, a U.S. Department of State spokeswoman, said she couldn't release any information on the bus passengers without their permission.
The embassy was sending representatives to hospitals to obtain more information from the passengers, she said.
do you know any of the people there? We are friends with three of the families, one of whom is seriously injured.