Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990                   TAG: 9003071812
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

VINTON BUS `WRECK' HAS POLICE GUESSING

About 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, a Vinton woman who lives near Vale Avenue and Seventh Street called the Vinton Police Department and told the dispatcher that "it looks like there's been an accident" between a bus and a car near her home.

The dispatcher, Nancy Langley, followed standard procedure and dispatched fire and rescue vehicles and also alerted a Vinton police officer.

The officer arrived at the scene before the ambulance left the building and found it wasn't a real accident, the dispatcher said. "We don't know what it was," she said.

The Vinton dispatcher told the fire and rescue units to disregard the call. And a Vinton police lieutenant called Valley Metro to tell them to please notify Vinton authorities if they ever planned to hold another mock accident in the town, Langley said.

A supervisor at Valley Metro said he could not comment on the mock accident, except to say that "we train some of our supervisors how to investigate accidents" and that's what was going on Tuesday morning.

The supervisor said another supervisor, who was conducting the training, had gone home for the day and was not available to comment.