Student’s Car May Have Struck Bus Before Crash
A school bus that plunged from an interstate overpass, killing three teenage girls and injuring about two dozen more, had been struck moments before by a car, and the bus driver was ejected before the bus crashed nose-first 30 feet below, a witness said.
Thad Sokolowski, a 17-year-old Lee High School student, told The Huntsville Times that he saw the car driven by a fellow student fishtail and maybe blow a tire.
“Then I saw it hit the bus,” he said. “Not real hard, but it hit it. The bus swerved some, and it hit the wall. Then, it went over the wall.”
Sokolowski, who was in another car when the accident occurred Monday morning, said he was shocked to see the school bus driver had been ejected and was lying motionless on the interstate ramp. A National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman, Debbie Hersman, also told CNN on Tuesday the driver was found on the overpass, but the agency wasn’t clear if he had been ejected or somehow got out as the bus careened down the interstate and crashed over the railing.
“We thought he was dead,” Sokolowski told The Times in a story Tuesday. “Blood was everywhere. He wasn’t moving.”
Hersman said the school bus driver remained hospitalized in serious condition and the NTSB hopes to be able to speak with him. The bus driver’s name has not been released.
Police said the bus veered off the road after an orange car came up on its side, possibly striking the bus. Hersman said there is “some contact evidence” and that the bus traveled about 450 feet from the point where contact may have begun and the site where the bus went over the railing.
Police Chief Rex Reynolds said the car’s driver and a passenger went to a hospital following the crash, but he was not aware if they were treated for injuries. He said the driver was interviewed by police. He declined to comment on whether any charges might be filed.
Sokolowski said he was a passenger with a friend who was driving them to a downtown tech center, the destination of the Lee High School students on the bus.
Lee High School student LaWanda Jefferson, 16, who was on the bus, told The Associated Press she spotted the passing orange car seconds before she felt herself catapulted sideways.
“The bus went to the side, and I guess it went over,” she said. “When it was falling … I was just glad when it hit the ground.”
Two teenage girls died in the wreckage; a third died later at a hospital.
“They were falling on each other. People were screaming, yelling, crying,” said Jefferson, who suffered fractures to her left arm and cuts and bruises to her face.
More than 30 Lee High School students and the bus driver were taken to Huntsville Hospital, which became a hectic trauma center Monday with emergency physicians and staff called in to help as ambulances brought in the severely injured.
Five people, including the bus driver, had undergone surgery, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The police chief identified the high school students who died at the scene as Christina Collier, 18, and Nicole Ford, 17. A third, Tanesha Hill, 17, died at the hospital from her injuries.
The school bus was not equipped with seat belts. The National Transportation Safety Board has said that school buses are designed to protect occupants without the use of seat belts. A new design uses strong, well-padded, high-backed seats, closely spaced together, the NTSB has said.
However, Hersman said at a news conference Monday night that the board last week added school bus safety to its list of most wanted transportation safety improvements. She said the board is recommending that new standards be devised to improve safety when buses are involved in rollover crashes.