Names released in RAGBRAI bus accident

Police have released the name of a woman who was seriously injured in a bus accident during the last leg of RAGBRAI in Guttenberg. The accident happened shortly after nine A.M. Saturday when the brakes went out on the bus that was a support vehicle for the cross-state bike ride as it was traveling down a steep hill into Guttenberg. The driver, 40-year-old Ronald Laing of Des Moines, tried the emergency brakes, but they were out as well. Laing then drove the bus into the oncoming lane of traffic to avoid vehicles stopped an intersection. The bus jumped a curb at the bottom of the hill, went over some railroad tracks, down and embankment and then flipped onto its side and caught fire. A passenger, 30-year-old Brandi Helmkamp of Fort Dodge was thrown through the windshield. Helmkamp was airlifted to University Hospitals in Iowa City in serious condition. Laing had been pinned in the bus, but bystanders freed him and he was taken to the Guttenberg hospital where he was treated and released.