“I thought it was an exercise at first. That maybe they were dolls. It was so unreal. Chaos.” Michelle MacKey, a nurse, had just stepped off another bus in Stockholm when she saw what a double-decker had done to the queue at a bus stop.
Three people were killed and three injured on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. Police were alerted at 3:23 p.m., in the middle of the afternoon rush hour. The bus ran into the shelter on Valhallavägen, a street in the Östermalm district in the north of the city, near the Royal Institute of Technology.
MacKey told the Expressen daily she crossed the road and saw injured and dead people on the ground. Many were screaming, others were trying to help. “There must have been more people under the bus,” she said.
Media images showed rescue crews crouched beneath the vehicle, apparently helping people trapped there. Police officers, ambulances and emergency vehicles filled the scene within minutes. The front of the bus looked seriously damaged.
Driver detained
The driver was arrested and police opened a manslaughter investigation. Police described the case as “involuntary manslaughter” while the inquiry continued. Spokesperson Nadya Norton told AFP the arrest was routine. “We need to question him, then we’ll see if he’s going to be released or detained,” she said.
She would not guess at a cause. “The investigation will have to determine what happened. It’s too early to say and I don’t want to speculate.” Swedish media reported that the crash appeared to have been an accident.
Swedish news agency TT, citing emergency services, said the vehicle was a regular city bus that was not in service, with no passengers aboard.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X that he had “received the tragic news that several people have died and been injured at a bus stop in central Stockholm.” He added: “People who might have been on their way home to family, friends, or a quiet evening at home. We do not yet know the cause, but right now my thoughts are primarily with those affected and their loved ones.”
Valhallavagen reopened Friday evening. Police technicians were still working at the stop by then, though the emergency vehicles had gone.
Sources
- Three people killed as Stockholm bus slams into pedestrians
- A bus crashes into a bus stop in Stockholm, killing 3 people and injuring 3
