A bus carrying 26 members of a church group, including multiple teenagers, experienced a fiery accident on a California highway, leaving many injured while they made their way back from a youth retreat.

While 20 individuals required hospitalization, six others opted out of further medical attention at the site. Among those hospitalized, three sustained severe injuries. In total, 36 passengers were on board, as reported by the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

About 125 parishioners from Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Santa Ana had ventured to Camp Nawakwa in the San Bernardino Mountains for a weekend retreat.

The group was en route to Orange County in several buses when one of them encountered an accident at a sharp bend on a two-lane highway near Running Springs shortly before 9 p.m., according to a statement from the Diocese of Orange.

Father José Félix Troncoso, a pastor from the church, mentioned that as of Monday afternoon, six parishioners remained in the hospital, receiving treatment for broken fingers and at least one head injury.

The other vans carrying the rest of the retreat attendees arrived at their final destination without an issue.

One witness told ABC 7 that the bus caught fire as the driver tried to brake around the sharp turn.

“They were braking and then right when he hit this turn right here, you could tell it was about to flip, so he jerked it into the wall and tried to stop it, but it didn’t obviously work out,” they told the outlet.

All 36 people on the bus were able to safely escape, with some, like 21-year-old community college student Cyntia Ramirez, scrambling through the top hatch of the bus with help from the youth leaders.

“It’s just a freak accident,” Ramirez said.

One of the youth leaders, 20-year-old Prisilla Mendoza, was in the middle of a well-earned rest after the three-day retreat when the bus crashed.

“I was asleep and I just woke up and I heard everybody screaming,” she said.

Mendoza said that she blacked out shortly after and couldn’t recall how she escaped.

The California Highway Patrol closed the road in both directions and is investigating the crash.

With Post wires