SCHOOL BUS CRASH REPORTS 2007

Boy in Critical Condition Following Bus Accident
April 11, 2007

A 10-year-old boy is in critical condition and three other children remain in hospital following a frightening accident involving a school bus and a tractor-trailer on a busy highway in Brampton, Ont.

The boy is being treated at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, as is a nine-year-old girl who fractured her leg but didn't suffer life-threatening injuries.

Officials say the eight-year-old was admitted to the William Osler Health Centre in Brampton with serious head injuries and no vital signs before he was resuscitated and airlifted to Sick Kids.

"I went down into the ditch, looked into the bus and compressions were being done on the kid," Patrick Forgie, an off-duty medic, told the Canadian Press. "They helped me up into the bus and I just took control of his airway."

Forgie said the boy was bleeding profusely from the head.

Officials at the Brampton hospital say they are keeping two students for observation, while 24 other crash victims have been released.

The accident occurred in the northbound lanes of Highway 410 between Steeles Ave. and Clark Blvd. at about 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The bus was involved in a minor collision with a tractor-trailer that was hauling a load of lumber, according to Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Cam Woolley.

Woolley described the incident as a "side-swipe type collision."

"The school bus then drove into the grass median that separates the north and southbound lanes," Woolley told CTV.ca.

"It's soft muddy ground. The school bus came to a stop there, it did not overturn and I guess the jostling and the off-road sort of event with the bus injured some of the children."

The students are in Grades 3 and 4 and were on a field trip before the collision occurred.

Hospital officials said most of the 26 children on board suffered minor bumps and bruises.

Four adults on the bus -- the driver, two parents and one teacher -- were also treated. The female driver is the only adult that remains in hospital. She reportedly suffered minor injuries.

Chief Emergency Room Dr. Naveed Mohammad said for the most part, the children remained calm during the ordeal.

"There weren't any children that were panicking. They were sort of confused. Children being children, they were quickly able to interact with us," Mohammad said.

Worried Parents
All the children were students at St. Alfred Catholic School on Havenwood Dr. in Mississauga, west of Toronto. Worried parents arrived at the school Wednesday morning, looking for information about their children.

"I hope he's all right," one worried mother told CTV's Tom Hayes at the school.

"I'm so sad, I'm so upset. I feel terrible. This is your worst nightmare, sending your child on an educational trip and then something like this happens," said one distraught parent whose child was not on the trip.

The parents had been notified about their children by later on Wednesday, the school board said.

Pat Pringle, the driver of the tractor-trailer, was not hurt.

"The kids were in rough shape, there was a couple of kids that were real bad," Pringle told CTV's John Musselman at the scene.

"You could just tell by looking at them (with) cuts and scratches and holding their arms, holding their legs."

Grief counsellors will be at the school on Thursday to help students and teachers deal with the ordeal.

Police Investigating
Woolley said the impact was "relatively minor."

"But it did cause the bus to go into the median," Woolley added. "It's a bit rough in there. The bus bounced up and down. You can see the wrinkles in the roof of the bus. It's clear the kids were thrown from their seats."

Investigators believe the bus driver may have been attempting to pass the truck and she may have misjudged her distance, clipping the truck.

Fortunately, the median was muddy and wet and it may have slowed down the bus just enough to prevent it from entering the southbound lanes.

Police are still investigating and they expect to keep the northbound lanes of Hwy. 410 closed for much of the day.

The OPP asked anyone who witnessed the accident to call police at 1 (888) 310-1122 or the Port Credit Detachment at (905) 278-6131.

Seatbelts
As news of the accident filtered out, Ontario's transportation minister said she would review the use of seatbelts on school buses.

Donna Cansfield told CTV's Paul Bliss that she will call her federal counterpart to ask about Transport Canada research into seatbelts on school buses.

Transport Canada has been reviewing the seatbelt question for several years but no final decision has been reached.

Arguments in favour of seatbelts say it is safer to strap children in the seats to keep them from being thrown around during a collision or rollover.

But that raises the question of how children would be unbuckled in case of a fire or evacuation.

The large seats commonly found on school buses are believed to provide protection during impacts. During rollover accidents, however, children are left vulnerable.

Cansfield said lessons learned in this case will also be reviewed to determine if seatbelts would have made a difference.

Ontario school buses transport about 800,000 children every day, and Cansfield says they have a very good safety record.

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