MINNEAPOLIS: One player was injured and coach Jay Gruden suffered whiplash after two Washington Redskins buses were in an accident as the team headed to TCF Bank Stadium for their game on Sunday.
The accident took place on a highway exit ramp several hours before the start of the Redskins’ contest against the Minnesota Vikings.
There were no major injuries on either bus — which carry players, coaches and team personnel — but several players said they were shook-up by the incident.
Rookie running back Silas Redd was held out of Sunday’s National Football League game with back spasms suffered in the smash.
Gruden, who has a sore neck, described the incident as “pretty scary”.
“A little unique way to start the day, when you’re getting ready for a football game and you’re five feet from driving off a cliff,” Gruden said.
The Washington Post reported that the accident happened when the police escort in front of the first bus missed the exit ramp.
The first bus had to stop to avoid hitting the police cruiser.
It was then rear-ended by the second bus which pushed it
to the left, close to an embankment.
The bus stopped before going down a steep drop, the newspaper said.
The Redskins typically use more than two buses to transport players from the hotel to games, so not all were on the buses involved.
Quarterback Robert Griffin was sitting beside fullback Darrel Young at the front of the second bus.
“That was a scary moment, honestly,” Griffin told the Post.
“We probably had half a second, if that, to react on that bus. As the guys that were sitting up front on that bus, [Young] and myself, we saw the bus hit the bus and we both thought we were going to fly out the window shield.
“Everybody got a little bit of whiplash, I believe. We bumped our knees on the front of the little guard because we were sitting up front.
“But it was scary, man. It was scary to be in that situation. You don’t expect to be in that - being on a bus on the way to a game,” he said, adding that “a lot of guys had their lives flash before their eyes.”
Redskins receiver Pierre Garcon tweeted a picture of the bus with a cracked windshield.
“So this just happened,” he wrote on Twitter. “But we are ok.”
Other buses arrived to take the passengers to the game which the Redskins lost 29-26. AFP
