Chicago, IL- An early morning accident involving a school bus and two other vehicles in Wadsworth, a suburb of Chicago, left one adult dead and over two dozen students injured.
The accident occurred just after 8 a.m. this morning on Route 173 when the school bus carrying 35 students to the Newport Elementary collided with a Jeep Wrangler and a Jeep Cherokee.
The bus, according to the Chicago Tribune may have run a red light, violently slamming into the Jeep Wrangler, which was traveling southbound. Lake County Sherriff Mark Curran said the accident was “close to a T-bone,” adding that the Jeep Cherokee was also hit “very hard.”
The impact of the crash caused the bus to spin out of control; it then struck the Jeep Cherokee then overturned shattering the windows and tossing the children around the bus.
When emergency officials arrived the children had already exited the bus thought the back emergency door. Curran said of accident, “It’s a bad scene,” and described many of the children as “walking wounded,” the Tribune reported.
Twenty-five of the children were loaded on another bus and taken to the Connell Medical Center in Libertyville. Most of their injuries were minor and many of the students were released.
Twelve of the students were sent to local hospitals by ambulance for treatment of more serious injuries, though none of were life-threatening. One girl suffers from a skull fracture and was listed in fair condition.
“Everybody’s alive on the school bus, and obviously we want to pray for the children and hope everybody is fine,” Curran said.
The female school bus driver and the two people in the Jeep Cherokee were taken to hospitals with minor injuries.
The bus driver is cooperating with authorities and will have to undergo drug and alcohol screening as required by law following a fatal accident.
The Jeep Wrangler sustained major damage; the hood was crushed and the pushed into the front seat. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene, the Daily Herald reported.
Police closed Route 173 for a couple of hours so they could conduct their investigation, but have not yet determined the cause of the accident.
According the Tribune one witness told police the school bus driver ran a red light, that police have not officially released the cause of the accident.
Curran said the high seat backs on the bus helped protect the children from serious injury.
Despite the fact that at least a few tragic bus accidents have occurred across the country so far this year, buses have a lower accident rate than passenger vehicles. But bus crashes often end with more injuries simply because they have more passengers.
According to 2009 data from the Federal Motor Carrier Administration, there were 212 fatal bus accidents in comparison to 18,315 fatal collisions involving passenger cars. Additionally, the FMCA estimates that 15 out every 19 bus crashes can be attributed to driver error or distractions.
