The Dahlia bus driver who slammed into an MTA bus in a fatal crash Monday morning previously drove for the MTA. He was fired from the transit authority after receiving a DUI, according to reports.
Raymond Mong, 49, died in the Monday morning crash, along with two others. Dahlia, the charter bus company for which Mong was driving, has its own history of dangerous driving violations and crashes.
Mong has a record as well and in 2015, Connecticut State Police charged him with driving under the influence after rear-ending a car on I-95, officials told DNAinfo. The accident caused a chain reaction in which the vehicle Mong rear-ended then slammed into another car.
Mong pleaded guilty and served six months in jail along with having an 18-month probation, according to court records, DNAinfo reports. He was not driving an MTA vehicle at the time.
An MTA spokesperson confirmed in an email that Mong was an employee with the transportation authority.
Mong was fired in 2015 “for cause,” the official said.
Alexandra Wynne of East Haven, Conn. was one of the drivers involved in the 2015 chain-reaction crash.
The car Mong was driving in the 2015 crash was “smoking” after slamming into a car that then slammed into Wynne’s vehicle, she told the New York Post, but Mong fled the scene, backing up and continuing down the highway.
“I was in shock. I was like, ‘Wow,’ I couldn’t believe he just drove off like that. And he was going fast. Highway cops ended up getting him a short time later,” Wynne told the Post. “I luckily walked away from my crash. I can’t believe this guy was allowed to get a job driving.”
The other two people who died after Monday’s incident were Henry Wdowiak, 68, a pedestrian who died at the scene, and Gregory Liljefors, 55, who had been a passenger on the city bus, officials said.
