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SCHOOL BUS CRASH REPORTS 2007School Bus Crashes; 7 Injured One moment Veronica Cich was talking with her friends while riding the bus to school. The next she was lying on top of one of them and another one was lying on top of her, surrounded by broken glass, her trumpet stuck in the seat. As her school bus on its way to St. Francis Middle and High school rounded a corner at County Rd. 58 and NW. Cedar Dr. in northern Andover, it collided with a car, rolled over on its side and came to rest on top of the other car. The bus driver was identified by Anoka County Sheriff's Office as Nancy Mei, 57, of Ham Lake. She and five students who were on the bus, and the driver of the other vehicle, identified as Lori Wietman, 39, of East Bethel were taken to Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids. Most have "minor non-critical injuries, but one adult is undergoing further evaluation," spokesman Bill Van Cleaf. Veronica Cich, 12, a seventh-grader at St. Francis Middle School who was one of 25 students on the bus, was not hurt, but she was shaken up. "It was really scary," said Cich, 12, a seventh-grader at St. Francis Middle School who had just boarded the bus a few minutes before the accident reported to authorities at 6:38 a.m. "I thought maybe we got a flat tire and went into the ditch. It all happened so fast. I didn't know what was going on." Authorities are not totally sure what made Bus No. 19 operated by the St. Francis School District tip over, but preliminary results of the investigation show that the bus driver who had rounded a curve on County Road 58 to go north on Cedar Dr. drifted across the center line, over corrected and lost control. The bus then collided with the southbound vehicle and rolled over, said Capt. Dave Jenkins of the Anoka County Sheriff's Department. Teams from the Anoka County Sheriff's Department and the State Patrol are on the scene to reconstruct the accident and determine the official cause. There were no adverse road conditions at the time of the crash, Jenkins said. Jenkins said that there didn't appear to
be any mechanical problems with the bus. Cich said she thought maybe the
bus got a flat tire, which caused it to go out of control. Cich said this is not the first time her school bus has been involved in a crash this year. She said that a few weeks ago that the driver bumped a car while at a stop light. Phone calls to the St. Francis School District have not been returned. This is not the first crash for a St. Francis district bus on the route that makes the run through East Bethel and Andover. Five years ago, several students on the bus today were aboard a bus that hit a car at County Rd. 22 and NE. Jackson St. in East Bethel. In that accident, the driver reported that the brakes went out as bus crossed County Rd. 22 and hit a vehicle. It was not the same driver who was at the wheel in today's accident, Jenkins said. There names of the bus driver, hospitalized students and the driver have not been released. By Tim Harlow, Star Tribune 7 Hurt in Andover School Bus Accident School Bus Crash Injures Seven
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