Tammy Yew, 77, was waiting in the median at Northern Boulevard on her way to her housekeeping job when she saw the charter bus zooming down the street.

“The bus came barreling down the street so fast, so fast, it was like an airplane,” she said in Mandarin, waving her hands as she described what she saw.

Mr. Mong and those who were critically injured were taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Queens, where four patients were in critical condition late Monday evening; noncritical patients were being treated at Elmhurst Hospital Center, where Mr. Liljefors was taken, and Flushing Hospital Medical Center, according to Michael Fitton, the assistant chief of emergency medical services.

On Monday evening, Mr. Liljefors’s family gathered in his fourth-floor apartment in Flushing, struggling to process what happened earlier in the day. “We’re grieving,” said Chazen Rivera, 34, a stepson, adding that Mr. Liljefors used to work in the ticket booth at the Queens Zoo.

Marcin Kurpiewski was driving on Monday when the police called and told him that his stepfather, Mr. Wdowiak, died in the bus crash. “I pulled over, got out of the car and just fell to my knees,” Mr. Kurpiewski, 37, said in an interview.

He said that his stepfather was a pilot in Poland before moving to the United States and someone who helped anyone in need. “It still feels like he’s coming home,” Mr. Kurpiewski said.