National Coalition For School Bus Safety

SCHOOL BUS CRASH REPORTS 2004

School bus overturns in St. Louis County
January 12, 2004

A bus carrying about 20 students from the city to an elementary school in the Parkway School District flipped over onto its side on Highway 40 this morning, injuring several students and the driver.

As of this afternoon, one student and the bus driver were still hospitalized at St. John's Mercy, each in serious condition. Another student was expected to be released from the hospital later today. All of the other students who had been treated for injuries had been released.

A spokeswoman for Parkway said the bus was heading west on Highway 40 about 8:30 a.m. when it tipped over just west of Interstate 270. It was on its way to Shenandoah Valley school in Chesterfield. No other vehicles appeared to be involved in the accident.

School bus overturns in St. Louis County
Emergency personnel work on the scene of an accident Monday involving a school bus on Highway 40 (Interstate 64) just west of Interstate 270 in Town and Country.

The bus driver, identified as Linda Gilley, 50, of St. Louis, told authorities that as she was coming up over a hill near 270, she noticed that the traffic in front of her had slowed or stopped. She swerved to the left to avoid the traffic, then overcorrected and lost control of the bus. The bus turned on the driver's side and slid for several hundred feet, police said.

The front windshield of the bus popped out in the crash, allowing several of the students to get out that way. Others reportedly left through the back of the bus.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m., the bus had been towed away and Highway 40 was clear in both directions. It had been lying on its side across several lanes of westbound 40, blocking traffic.

Fifth grader Rachel Bates, 10, said she was sitting in her assigned seat near the center of the bus when the bus suddenly began to swerve on the highway.

The next moment, the bus had flipped onto its side and was skidding across the pavement.

Rachel said she was thrown across the aisle and into another seat.

"Everybody was scared," she said. "I was saying, 'I want to go home,' "

As she stood up, she said, she noticed a friend nearby bleeding from a head wound and crying.

She said she is not sure whether she can get back on a school bus again, at least immediately.

"I don't know," she said. "I'm scared."

Her mother, Rachel Bates, said she understood her daughter's concern.

"I'm going to work with her and not rush her," she said. "It will be an adjustment, for these kids and for us."

Saleema Johnson, 9, a third-grader at the school who suffered a broken left wrist in the accident, said when the bus tipped over on its side she was thrown into the air.

"All I saw was people screaming, all I saw was blood," said Saleema as she left St. Luke's Hospital with her mother, Cora, Monday morning. Moments after the accident, she said, she grabbed a cell phone from another student and called her mother.

The bus typically carries about 28 students, but district officials weren't sure how many were riding Monday. It was operated by Laidlaw as part of the voluntary school desegregation plan.

Besides St. John's, injured students also were taken to St. Luke's and Missouri Baptist hospitals. Counselors were sent to the hospitals to help the students deal with the wreck, and were helping the kids' classmates at the grade school.

By Bill Smith - Post-Dispatch