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SCHOOL BUS CRASH
REPORTS 1999
Two
Accidents in Florida
November 1999
Diane Bennett, assistant director of student transportion for Volusia County
schools, Tim Huth, deputy superintendent and Fred Miller, assistant superintendent for administrative services for
Volusia, look inside of the school bus at the damage caused by a cement truck when it failed to stop before turning right at a red light. |
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Trouble On Roads For Kids
DELTONA -- Ambulance sirens wailed through four Central Florida counties Thursday morning as rescuers responded to traffic accidents involving school-bound students.
None of the injuries was life threatening, but five accidents in Volusia, Osceola, Orange and Seminole counties kept parents and police on edge.
In Volusia County, a cement truck took a corner too fast and rolled over into the side of a school bus, injuring at least seven Deltona High School students and the truck's driver.
Samuel Rushing, 24, of Lake Monroe smashed his truck into the bus carrying 42 students. The accident left twisted metal and shattered glass, but Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Leslie Bibeau said the students fared well considering the damage. The truck driver and student Melody Pender, a senior, were airlifted to Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach. Five other kids rode in ambulances to Florida Hospital-Fish Memorial in Orange City. All should recover, Bibeau said.
Sophomore Robyn Vazquez, who sat in front of Pender, said she heard a scrape and then saw the truck coming toward her. "I jumped. I was so scared," Robyn said. "I
just heard everybody screaming. Blood everywhere. Glass everywhere."
Rushing was making a right turn from Howland Boulevard onto Providence Boulevard when the crash happened.
The bus was stopped in the left-turn lane of Providence Boulevard, waiting to turn onto Howland.
Witnesses told investigators the trucker ran a red light before turning sharply and tipping the truck, which is owned by Lakeland-based Ewell Industries, Bibeau said.
Bibeau said she expected Rushing to be cited for running a red light.
In Osceola County, a pair of accidents in Poinciana sent 14 students and an adult to the hospital. No one was seriously injured in either incident.
The day started when Ryan Edwards, 12, a middle school student from Poinciana, became the 10th student in six weeks in Osceola and Orange counties to be hit
by a car on the way to school.
In the afternoon, 13 students were taken to hospitals after their school bus skidded off the road. The bus driver pulled over because the Discovery Intermediate Schools students were unruly. The bus slid toward a ditch in the mud, and some passengers were shaken up. The bus was not hit by another vehicle.
Some kids were taken to the hospital, and others were picked up by parents. The remainder were put on another bus and taken home, officials said.
©Published in The Orlando Sentinel on November 12, 1999.
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