SCHOOL BUS CRASH
REPORTS 2007
School Bus Crash Leaves Two Injured
May 9, 2007
WESTLEY — A school bus drove off Hamilton
Road and into Ingram Creek on Friday afternoon, injuring a student and
the bus driver.
Witnesses said an ambulance took a young
boy to a hospital and the bus driver went to a Turlock hospital by
private vehicle.
“I saw smoke coming up (from the creek),”
Matthew Martin said. “It was crazy. We thought we would be pulling out
some bodies.”
Martin had been working in a building
just west of the creek.
| The small bus had been traveling
west on Hamilton Road with only the driver and a Grayson Charter
School student when it veered north off the road, running into a
street sign and the bridge barricade.
It crashed through the barricade
and plunged into the creek, several yards below the bridge.
California Highway Patrol
officials could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
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Witnesses said the student was wearing a
seat belt at the time of the accident. Patterson Unified School District
had contracted the 24-passenger bus from Newman-based Laidlaw Transit
Inc. Laidlaw representatives declined to comment for this story.
It took a tow truck about half an hour to
get the bus out of the ditch. The front end of the bus was crushed.
School bus accidents are rare, said Kevin
Cunningham, coordinator of operations and facilities for the school
district.
“Maybe the occasional fender bender,” he
said. “It’s been a few years at least since the last (injury accident.)”
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Crash Reports 2007
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