Authorities revise death toll in fiery crash to 4 killed

Florida Highway Patrol officials have revised the number of people killed when a bus carrying Haitian farmworkers and a tractor-trailer collided in the Panhandle, putting the latest death toll at four.
Authorities declined to comment on the error and had previously reported that five people were killed in Saturday's crash. Two of the deceased have still not been identified.
A Florida pastor said yesterday he is working with authorities to help identify the four killed and the 25 injured in the crash. The farmworkers do not speak English, making the process even more difficult.
The Rev Frantz Gaudard of Belle Glade said the bus driver and several passengers were members of the First Haitian Community Church. He said the bus had come from Georgia, where the farmworkers were employed.

Authorities said the bus was carrying roughly 34 adults and children when it ran a flashing red light and a stop sign before hitting the tractor-trailer on Saturday. Both vehicles caught fire.
Guadard, the church's pastor, said several people are in intensive care.

"Some of them are in and out of conscious so it's very difficult to identify them. Most of their documents were burned in the crash as well," he said.
It's unclear who owned the bus or who employed the farmworkers.
"Right now we're trying to figure out who's missing from the community, who they haven't heard from," Guadard told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Guadard said he spoke briefly by phone with the bus driver, 56-year-old Elie Dupiche, who was hospitalised in critical condition. Dupiche has also driven buses for the church and is a very qualified driver, a "wonderful guy, very quiet guy and willing to serve," the pastor said.
Wakulla County Sheriff Charlie Creel described the crash as one of the worst he'd ever seen. He said the bus, a retired school bus model built in 1979, hit just behind the driver's door of the tractor-trailer on first impact and then spun around and hit it again as the vehicles went off the road and came to rest under a power line.