They couldn't resist.
Two gamblers who miraculously survived a catastrophic brush with death aboard a Chinatown casino bus climbed back aboard the same company's bus only hours later for another trip to the gaming tables.
Bernardo Garcia, a 50-year-old cook from Brooklyn — whose buddy Miguel Aquino was one of 14 people killed in Saturday's horrific 5:30 a.m. World Wide Tours bus crackup on the Hutchinson River Parkway — said he figured Lady Luck was on his side.
"I'm the kind of person that believes when it's your time to go, it's your time to go," he said.
And Theodore Radulescu, a 55-year-old cook from The Bronx, rushed straight from St. Barnabas Hospital still dressed in his medical gown and bloody socks to the Lower East Side's Bowery Mission, where he picked up new clothes before boarding another World Wide Tours bus back to Connecticut's Mohegan Suncasino.
"When a bomb goes off, it doesn't go off again in the same spot," Radulescu reasoned.
Only hours earlier, the pair had been on the World Wide Tours bus that careened out of control and had its top sheered off by a metal pole on the highway in The Bronx, decapitating at least one passenger and ripping arms off others.
After Garcia was treated for minor injuries and released from Jacobi Medical Center in The Bronx on Saturday, he headed right back to Chinatown for the 8:45 p.m. bus to Mohegan Sun — even after seeing his gambling buddy, Aquino, die in the crash.
After the accident, "I touched [Aquino], trying to wake him up, but he didn't give no answer," Garcia said.
Garcia said the entire busload of passengers was resting or asleep when disaster struck.
"We didn't know what really happened — we were all in the back," he said of the survivors. "We got out through a window on the top of the bus. We saw people screaming and crying. My mind is still all [messed] up.
"Seeing all those bodies, bruises all over their faces. The pole went right through everyone in the head. There was screaming. I can't even describe it. I saw arms cut off. They said one man lost both arms. Five people lost their arms."
Radulescu — who lost $65 playing video poker and Jacks or Better on Friday night — said the crash haunts him still.
"I woke up when I was slammed into the window," he recalled.
"I tried to help one lady. She didn't respond, I think she was dead. I helped two other ladies asking for help. I pulled them up through the window by their arms. One was bleeding from the head.
"I lost my shoes," he said. "When I got out, my right sock was soaked in blood. It wasn't mine."
But despite the troubling memories, after his discharge from St. Barnabas, Radulescu said, he went back for more.
"I'm not the kind of guy to be scared," he said.
At least two more gamblers who'd also escaped serious injuries in the Saturday dawn crash returned to the casino Saturday night, too, but both refused to comment.
Meanwhile yesterday, the grim, heartbreaking job of informing relatives of the victims continued.
At least one critically injured 50-year-old man at Jacobi Hospital remains unidentified, a spokeswoman said.
A police source said investigators will take his photo and fingerprints and try to match it up with any missing-persons reports that have been filed since the crash. So far, there have been no missing-persons reports filed.
One gambler who was at the Mohegan Sun on Saturday night said he narrowly escaped death — because he got distracted watching YouTube boxing videos in the casino and missed catching the bus back home.
The lucky gambler, Javier Parada, 39, said he'd won $100 playing poker Friday night and was distracted by watching YouTube and talking to a friend moments before the doomed bus departed.
"I was supposed to be on that bus," Parada said. "God must have pulled me off."
Casino video footage shows the bus's driver, Ophadell Williams, passing the time before he hit the road again by getting something to eat. He survived and passed a Breathalyzer test after the crash.
Another World Wide Tours driver, Teddy Krdozyski of Astoria, Queens, who was shuttling passengers to and from the casino later on Saturday night, said the drivers work long hours — 50 hours a week.
He said they work in 12-hour shifts, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.; he said he likes to sleep in the bus while waiting for gamblers to pile in for the ride home.
Thanks to Dave for the tip.
When you gotta gamble, you gotta gamble.... especially with your life.
Hutchinson parkway? No, it was on interstate 95.
That's a very stupid thing to do. I regret I gamble because all this <snip> do is taking your money. The Ny lottery is a complete ripp off. I tried many test before. Especially the Quickdraw. I took a $100 dollar to gamble, and next things I know, I didn't win <snip>, and before The drawing they already know what number they gonna give. It is predetermine. I check my quickdraw ticket while the drawing wasn't even taking place, and it reads sorry not a winner. Seriously, people gotta stop or reduce your play because the lottery is a complete rip off. If it sounds to good to be tue, it is indeed to good to be true. This is a scam. They take all people money, and in times of the jackpot, they hire an actor to say I won the jackpot. They even create their own story to make people believe its true. The lottery is a target to poor people. The lottery was created to take the poor money, and therefore, the poor become poorer. There is nothing nobody can do about it, but to be smarter with our money. When take our hard earn money to play the lottery, we just throw the money away. I'm sure there was alot better things that you could have done with the money. Such as going to the movie, buy food, pay rent, get a nice phone, save it in a bank account, donate to poor, buy new clothes, get a lap top, get a new shoes, and exct. But we choose to let the advertise of the lottery drives us to spend our money on stupid thing that you can't even win. When you do the logic thinking, you lose more money than actually winning money. Wake up peopl the lottery is a scam to take your hard earn money.
Welcome to Lottery Post, the place where people come together to talk about the numbers they are playing.
My deepest sympathy to all the families who lost loved ones.
Hey Dick,
You didn't win so obviously it's fixed to rip off the poor.
I bet Bush and Cheney are behind this diabolical plot to defraud you.
Maybe you can get that job as an actor saying that you won the Jackpot.
Ask Governor Cuomo or Mayor Bloomberg. They're the rich guys that run the show in NY.
Garcia sees his buddy die next to him on a bus and his first thought is to get on another bus to go back and gamble some more "because Lady Luck is on his side".
And people wonder why I'm a drunken sociopath living in a bunker inside a compound in a secluded holler hidden in the backwood mountains.
Man, I really missed you when you were gone!
Well thank you, Todd! I missed being here too, glad to be back.
That was the scary part. I couldn't figure out the "logic" he was using (if any). I was more scared after reading that article because It really made me believe that there are nut cases out there who have "no limits, conscious, loyalty..nuthing who just want SOME MONEY!!
I feel bad for the Victims and their Families.
But the 2 Men are just plain sick.
This is my reaction: OUCH! Which bus did these survivors went to exactly?
Move over bacon - here comes sizzlelean! I could use a place like that to hideout from time to time!
but my reckoning is he shoulda gone the bloody deuce home and hugged his family
I agree hes a bit of a putz .... but que sera sera
WOW!!! some people....
I missed you too
I get that they're not worried about getting back on a bus, but to have people right next to you die in an event like this and then your first thought is to go and gamble... just don't get that. I would have to go and see my family, maybe to go a bar and take a shot to get my nerves together... but I don't think I could just rush out of the hospital, buy new clothes and immediately start gambling again.
I don't know if you'd make it past the McNutts down halfway up the mountain, dbello.
They get real excitable when they see strangers comin up the mountain. Specially wimmins.
.
I agree with you there. All I can figure is this is the type of guy to laugh at a funeral...or maybe he just deals with death in an extreme way.
I have a feeling this cat broke down at the craps tables hours after he got there after it all came tumbling back to him.
My other thought, though, is to wonder 'did the guy at least take a shower, particularly to wash the blood off him'
How does the country song go... "God is great. Beer is good. And people are crazy."
10-4 on the nut cases, Little.
Those two guys brought nutjobitis to a whole new level though.
Well thank you, lil darlin! It's good to see you too.
Well the article said all he did was stop at the Bowery Mission for clothes cuz his right sock was soaked with blood.
He probably didn't want to waste time washing his mangled friend's blood off of himself while he was on such an amazing good luck streak.
It's seems an odd reaction for these two fellows. Yet, who knows, maybe each reads a lot of articles about the winners and have noticed the trend that some of the multi-million dollar lottery and casino winners had something very bad happen (e.g., house fire, lay-off, burglary, foreclosed home) before their big win (which restored hope in them again)! Hopefully, we'll hear that one of the two men won big to lift himself out of the low emotions as a result of this bazaar, sudden, stark, bloody, and shocking bus accident.
Anyhow, it sounded like the bus driver was accustomed to the route, so his double-decked bus' collision with the overhead post is surprising!
These 2 men are seasoned gamblers.