Passengers suffer ‘blunt force trauma’ in Los Angeles tour bus crash (VIDEO)

LOS ANGELES — Five passengers are being treated for "blunt force trauma" injuries after their charter bus overturned on its way to a local casino.

More than 50 passengers were injured when the tour bus flipped onto its side on the 210 freeway near Irwindale. 

Eight victims were determined to need immediate medical attention after they were removed from the bus, said Dr. Leo Rodriguez of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

Aerial footage after the accident showed the bus lying on its side in an embankment near the train tracks that run along the freeway.

Witnesses told reporters that the bus driver may have hit the breaks hard to avoid a collision when it swerved across multiple lanes and overturned. 

One witness told KTLA that the bus appeared to change lanes when it clipped the back of a black Hyundai Elantra.

"The next thing I knew everything was just going really fast and we all kind of swerved over here to the right side and the bus flipped over in the back," the driver of the Hyundai, Melody Bausa, told KTLA.

Jeff Lewis, a truck driver who was driving behind the bus, told the Los Angeles Times that he and five or six other people stopped to pull passengers out of the wrecked bus one by one.

"There were elderly people stuck on top of the other. They were going about 70 miles an hour and got thrown onto each other," Lewis, 49, told the Times.

"They were very quiet; I would say they were in shock."

The charter bus was operated by the Da Zhen Travel Agency based in in Monterey Park, California.

It was reportedly carrying Chinese-speaking residents to the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino in San Bernardino.

Rescue teams were overheard on the California Highway Patrol radio asking for Chinese translators to help officers communicate with passengers.