6 hurt in Mars school bus crash
ADAMS TWP — Six students were sent to hospitals with minor injuries Monday afternoon, after Mars School District bus No. 4 went over an embankment along Route 228 shortly before 3 p.m. and rolled onto its right side.
There were 40 students on the bus at the time of the crash, which was reported at 2:42 p.m., according to emergency responders and school officials.
“To have one of this magnitude is very scary for all of us,” Wes Shipley, district superintendent, said. “We're happy that we're only looking at minor injuries at this point.”
Shipley added that the bus was on its way to Adams Ridge — a housing development that encompasses about 1,000 acres and lies to the southeast of Seven Fields borough — at the time of the crash. It had left from the middle and high schools.
Timothy Llewellyn, assistant fire chief for Adams Area Fire District, said the bus was traveling west on Route 228 when an “unknown mishap” caused the driver to take the bus over an embankment along the side of the road.
There was no information on the driver of the bus, and the company which provides bus service to Mars schools, A.J. Myers & Sons Inc., declined to comment or provide information on the crash Monday afternoon.
That stretch of Route 228 has guard rails, Llewellyn noted, but a portion had been damaged in a previous accident and had not been fixed.
Emergency responders from the fire district were first on-scene, and immediately instituted a “mass casualty incident,” which lets hospitals know to be prepared for a large influx of patients. Six ambulances also responded, as well as firefighters, who stabilized the bus using the guard rail beams.Llewellyn said all of the students on the bus were evacuated easily, and no one was pinned or entrapped following the crash.“Kids were laying all over the place inside,” Llewellyn said. “Luckily none of the students were seriously injured.”Six students were taken by ambulance to hospitals with what Shipley said were minor injuries; 22 were taken to UPMC Passavant hospital on a second bus for evaluation; 12 students left the scene with their parents, according to district officials.In an interview, Shipley said the crash occurred during the bus' “secondary run,” Monday afternoon, and that the district notified all parents whose students use bus No. 4 of the crash by voice mail.Shipley said district officials contacted parents of the six students injured in the wreck separately.He praised the emergency response to the accident, saying there was “great coordination through emergency medical folks,” and district administrators who came to the scene of the crash.“It's very important for us to make sure they're (students) all safe,” Shipley said.The county's Emergency Services Department said at least 10 emergency response organizations — from police and fire to EMS companies — went to the scene.
Following the wreck, parents were reunited with their children at the CVS Pharmacy on Pittsburgh Street in Mars, near the accident scene. Some objected to putting their children on another school bus following the accident — one parent called the district's offer “the dumbest thing ever” — while others agreed.Parent Colleen Hannan opted to let her 13-year-old daughter be transported to the hospital for evaluation on the second school bus. Hannan said she heard about the crash from her son, who was at soccer practice when his sister's bus crashed and saw news about the wreck on Snapchat.“Her brother called me and said 'Did you hear about Emma?,'” Hannan said. “I said 'What about her?' I was not expecting that phone call.”Hannan said her daughter did not appear to have been injured, but she wanted to have her evaluated to be sure.Others were focused on the next steps and tomorrow's school day. One student at the reunification area asked when students' belongings would be retrieved from the bus, noting that he had homework to do in his backpack.School district officials at the CVS declined to comment Monday.Many of the students were crying as they left the reunification site with their parents.Adams Township police, who were in control of the accident scene Monday, declined to comment, saying their investigation is ongoing.Tanner Cole, Alexandria Mansfield, Caleb Harshberger and Eric Jankiewicz contributed to the report.
