On Monday morning, an Easton Area School District bus in Pennsylvania carrying 29 elementary school students veered off the road and into Bushkill Creek.
It was around 7:30 a.m. when the driver went through a guardrail and the bus traveled about 25 feet down the hillside, coming to rest with the front half of the bus in the water.
“The bus was traveling northbound, veered off, went through the guide rail and then off into the creek,” Chief Carl Scalzo of the Easton Police Department said, according to WFMZ-TV.
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Easton fire, police and emergency crews, as well as Suburban EMS and Bethlehem Township EMS, responded to the scene of the accident, according to lehighvalleylive.com.
The driver and at least two students had to be lifted from the site by means of a stokes basket, which is reserved for cases where people cannot get themselves out of a steeply sloped area, according to Easton Fire Chief Henry Hennings.
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“Crews are removing the bus that crashed into Bushkill Creek in Easton at around 7:30am,” Priscilla Ligouri with WFMZ shared on Facebook.
“About 30 middle schoolers were on board. Eight students and the bus driver were taken to the hospital. An Easton Area School District spokesperson said their injuries did not appear to be serious.”
Two students and the driver were taken to St. Luke’s Hospital Anderson campus, six students were taken by ambulance to St. Luke’s Easton campus, and five more were taken by their parents to the Easton campus.
While the exact details of the injured parties have not been shared, John Remaley, Easton Director of Safe Schools, said that at the time they didn’t seem to be serious.
“We’re making sure our students are safe and you know their welfare and their safety is first and foremost,” Remaley said to WFMZ. “We were down here making sure, you know the parents that arrived on the scene, that proper unification, or reunification, was accomplished.”
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“We are receiving reports of ‘families arriving at Anderson’ but have no specific information,” Easton Area School District Superintendent David Piperato said to lehighvalleylive.com.
At 8:45 a.m., another bus arrived to pick up the remaining students and transport them to their waiting families, who were parked at the end of the road closure.
As he was leaving the scene with his mother, an unnamed student said that the ordeal was “kind of scary” before giving reporters a thumbs-up and a smile.
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Police Chief Scalzo pointed out that the bus had miraculously missed all large trees on the way down — otherwise the accident could have been much worse.
The accident remains under investigation, and authorities have secured video of the incident from a car that was driving behind the bus at the time.
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“Looks like we have some video of exactly what occurred from a vehicle that was traveling behind the bus,” Scalzo said to WFMZ. “We also have physical evidence in the way of yellow marks and skid marks that we utilize whenever we reconstruct the scene.”
The bus driver will also be tested, as required, to see if any substances played a role.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
