By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A bus shuttling people between stops on a home tour slammed into a vacant building in Mount Auburn Sunday afternoon, leaving 17 people hurt and forcing Cincinnati's already stretched ambulance system to call for suburban help.

The Broadway Commons bus stalled, leaving the driver without his brakes on the Mulberry Street hill next to Vine Street elementary school, police said. Officials thought the driver might have been trying to steer the bus into a vacant lot. He missed that space, taking out the corner of a former convenience store and pharmacy that's been hit repeatedly.

The driver, whose name had not been released late Sunday, was most seriously hurt. The other patients were treated for cuts, bruises and complaints of back and neck pain, said fire District Chief Alan Sedam.

He was worried the building might fall on the victims and his firefighters. But a city building inspector checked out the three-story brick structure, more than a century old, and determined it was secure.

"It's very fortunate," Sedam said, "the building didn't come down on top of that bus."

Since a steel support pole was taken out, officials were concerned that the building may collapse. (Melissa Heatherly photo)

Bus riders were part of the Over-the-Rhine Summer Tour of Homes, the first to focus only on that historic neighborhood. Sponsored by the Over The Rhine Foundation and Fifth Third Bank, the tour's aim was to attract people to live in Over-the-Rhine.

The $10 tour included four private residences on Mulberry Street plus Mulberry Views, single-family homes priced up to $259,000. The bus was supposed to turn around on Mulberry and head back to Liberty Street, but couldn't. It crossed all four lanes of Vine Street and hit the building.

Fifteen of the 17 patients went to University and Good Samaritan hospitals, Sedam said. He sent the last two to Deaconess Hospital because he said he was worried he might be taxing the other two hospitals' emergency staffs too much. Four of the six patients sent to Good Samaritan were released late Sunday, the hospital said. The other two were in fair condition.

Also taxed were the Cincinnati fire ambulances and rescue units. When Sedam arrived on the scene about 3:10 p.m., he had access to only two rescue units - which have onboard paramedics who have training for more serious cases - and two ambulances, which can handle less severe problems.

Sedam told the dispatcher to start sending him any units as soon as they became available, but she already had other unrelated calls waiting. At one point, the dispatcher said she had calls stacked up and waiting for four ambulances to take as soon as they finished the calls they already were on. Sedam said he put two patients in as many of the ambulance bays as he could.

Police officers offered to transport anyone who was less seriously hurt, but Sedam decided to call for suburban help instead. Ambulances responded from Golf Manor and Woodlawn.

Some patients, strapped to backboards, waited that way for ambulances to arrive, Sedam said.

The situation pointed out the need for an overhaul of Cincinnati's patient care system, said Doug Stern, spokesman for the firefighters union, Local 48.

Representatives of the union and city worked with their physicians for more than a year on a plan to reduce the number of patients firefighters take to hospitals. It was developed after firefighters complained about the "you call, we haul" policy, meaning everyone who wants to go to the hospital goes - whether they really need ambulance transportation.

But after testing the new plan for 60 days earlier this year, they decided it was having the opposite effect - more people were being transported. So they reverted to hauling everyone while they work out a new system.

"Unfortunately, this just shows that our system needs help," Stern said.

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E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com